


Together this time

by BookofLife



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: And you're worrying about things you don't need to over stress about, But the subsequent chapters should make up for the first, Characters are somewhat different to what you know, Except they wanted to but never told each other, F/M, I Will Go Down With This Ship, It's a little miserable, OH LORD, Of chapter 3, Oliver and Felicity never got together AU, Season 5 AU, The health of my mother, There's dark and then there's this, This is about absolutely nothing but hoping it does something for you, Will reward patience, You Have Been Warned, You may also want to hold him close by the end, You may want to punch Oliver in the face in chapter 1, a possible job promotion, as in, be satisfying, chapter 1 hurts, chapter 2 will make you jump up and down, chapter 3 should, god willing, it's a bit angsty, love you guys, pay off, the book I want to write but haven't written
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-01 07:11:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 40,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13993128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookofLife/pseuds/BookofLife
Summary: What is she, if not a tool to be used? What has she been doing all this time, if he thinks it's been a waste?Why does he look like the one who was breaking when she was being told to stop?





	1. Turning Point

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in a weird head-space at the moment guys, and I'm sorry: it makes it difficult to get the big chapters for my others out when I'd like. This just came pouring out of me. It isn't brilliant and I'm not sure it will do anything for anybody but it kind of... helped me? Know what I mean? Anyway, there are three chapters.

 

It occurred to her randomly tonight - when, during a routine search for patterns in the manufacturing of the _next_ synthetic Vertigo (the newer, more lethal fad), her overworked brain had decided to focus on one very familiar, very _small_ , still very open wound inside her - that Oliver hadn’t had a date in… in _ever_.

It wasn’t _so_ strange. He didn’t date, period.

Oh, he had _relationships_ , if you could call them that. But mostly, he just slept around. Flings, affairs, moments in time with more women than most knew about because it wasn’t just Laurel, wasn’t just Helena; _yep, she popped back up during one of his lonelier moments_. A many month something, _Lord give me strength_. Isabel; _twice_. But those were a disturbing thing of the past. McKenna. His on again, off again thing with Sara...

There was also Trisha from accounting at QC; a woman with so many curls in her very brown hair they _boinged_ with every move she made and who’s actual name was Patricia, but she thought that sounded old. Susan, a reporter who’s view switched from ‘Mr Queen is incompetent’ to ‘Mr Queen is _highly_ competent’ every other day of the week and didn’t seem to be going away any time soon.

Elise, another brunette and his Saturday night booty call - sometimes Sunday morning breakfast buddy - flittered in and out of existence and Felicity suspected that zero feelings trespassed into those hours. _Though don’t tell Susan that_. The moment she got wind that Oliver wasn’t sleeping with _just_ her, she’d direct her energy on crucifying him. Not that they’d ever made their relationship official.

Oliver treated it - all of it - like a dirty secret.

She knew Trisha had been a way for him to get out of a sticky situation at Queen Consolidated a couple of years back - after a particularly tense meeting with Ray Palmer - where the woman had almost discovered something she shouldn’t, and he’d distracted her with the rare promise of more than a single orgasm, one he’d made very good on. It helped that she was stunning. That her laugh was surreally soft and easy to listen to. That she moisturised more than Felicity thought possible. _Oh how he must have suffered_.

Soap and water couldn’t erase the memory of hearing the woman explain in excruciating detail that Oliver was, basically, a God of sex to her friends as they’d stood around the water cooler. _And then that date a couple of months later_ … a flirty-flirt here and there. A way to distract the woman from Oliver’s appalling commitment phobia.

Though it really wasn’t that at all, was it? No. She knew it wasn’t.

Susan tended to come back for seconds and Felicity could honestly say that her dislike for her lay _far_ beyond the knowledge that Oliver had seen her naked and vice versa. _Perish the thought._

Just three months into Oliver’s status as _full_ CEO, eight months post Slade Wilson’s incarceration, and after Oliver had bought out Stellmore International - with a little help from Wayne Enterprises - _she’d_ popped up, new to the city, and had seen fit to side with a furious Isabel Rochev. She’d written a vivid, remarkably detailed and thoroughly insulting article about the feckless head of QC who bought out Miss Rochev; someone who could have healed the company. _Gag me with a spoon._

It didn’t include numbers or statistics. It _did_ include quotes of _anonymous_. And ‘sources say’. It _did_ incorporate every element of the feminist _fascist_ ; deliberately painting it in the kind of extremist light that Felicity could only wince at. Felicity was all for equality for women. She advocated women in power. But there was a level where it blurred; when women like Isabel _use_ it to fabricate and lie and garner sympathy. When it becomes a _tool_ , instead of a way of life. Contradictory to Susan’s story angle, she’d added a small, extremely derogatory passage about a certain _secretary_ Oliver liked to keep around, whose skirt was apparently too short and whose experience was beneath the grade. _Executive Assistant, why doesn’t anyone understand the difference?_ No one had bothered to look into Felicity’s history since then, not her double degree or her masters.

Now, she was the easy lay. The submissive office girl Oliver kept on a string.

Apparently, Oliver Queen graded on a curve. _Obviously_. The night following the article, Felicity had caught Susan in his office… flirting.

With a very fixed smile in his face and the same charm he’d used on Isabel Rochev in Russia in his eyes, he’d flirted back.

She’d almost puked in her mouth. Then, like a lead balloon, she’d deflated: _he works fast_. They’d already slept together. His behaviour was a _go-to_ of his. And she knew why. And felt so sorry for him.

She wanted to smack the stupidity out of him.

 _“It didn’t mean anything.”_ He’d said to her. Later. His hands spread and poised on the desk he stood behind. He knew he’d screwed up. What made it worse was that he thought it was a necessary mistake to make. _“I need friends in as many places as I can find.”_ It was as if he’d been speaking about a political alliance rather than an exchange of bodily fluid, _ew_. _“And as many people willing to speak out against Isabel. Someone with a name and a face that Star City listens to.”_

Because even though he’d gained ownership, he still faced serious opposition and the leading problem many had with him was his lack of experience despite leading the company for over a year.

 _“And_ Susan’s _your best shot?”_ If Dig had been there, he’d have thrown in the perfect amount of side-eye.

 _“Right now?”_ He’d exhaled, as if preparing to walk the green mile _. “Yes.”_

That breath alone was telling.

Stood in front of his desk, she’d taken him in. Had wondered at the sombre expression on his face, like he’d known he was entering another she-demon _thing_ for something less than noble. _“You could look less like you’re facing the firing squad, Oliver.”_

Quizzical - his mind elsewhere - a little crinkle at his brow had appeared; one she’d grown unfairly fond of. _“Hm?”_

_“And more like a man who’s just had sex.”_

A quick flinch from him had made his eyes flicker away.

 _“For a price…”_ she’d let that hang for several seconds as she’d watched him, hoping he’d see - that he’d choose better for himself than, well, solicitation - that he’d have a defence, something she’d missed. Something to make the roil in her stomach that would still, even after years, make itself known whenever Oliver’s love/sex life came into crystal clear view, which was every other week. _“You’re buying_ friendship _with sex.”_

But he knew that.

Eyes down, he’d cleared his throat. _Nope: no other reason. Just more of the same._ Like he couldn’t learn or didn’t want to.

When he’d looked back up at her, his expression had seared into her brain. Gaze steady. The way he’d decided, again, to be an idiot, knowingly. To hurt himself some more. That it was the ‘only way’. How his eyes - the beautiful shine in them that she’d once glimpsed frequently but now only once in a blue moon, _which meant never_ \- spoke of resignation. Not really the appropriate emotion for any sexual encounter, romantic or otherwise.

She hadn’t retracted the statement.

Really, he did this to himself.

And it was lucky, really, that Sara had left. And Helena just a couple of months ago. _What, pray tell, would you buy her silence with then Oliver?_ Cookies?

Eventually she’d let out a breath; giving up. Feeling a weary ache that had probably been all over her face. After years of leading a double life, of having no pay off in areas that hurt to touch, she felt every inch of it right then, _a catch I am not._ He’d seen her at her best and worse and hadn’t been moved by either.

 _“She’s not a bad person, you know.”_ He’d quietly told her, as if that made it all better.

So, she’d asked what was getting to her the most, next to his inability to care about himself. “ _Are we just going to ignore how she told the entire city that Oliver Queen has a not so clandestine affiliation with his ‘secretary’?”_  Because sleeping with the woman who wrote it, was _so_ the right way to go.

 _“I spoke to her about that.”_ The reply was immediate; gratifyingly. His next words were _profoundly_ male. _“It wasn’t personal. She’d reported on a rumour she heard and-”_

 _“Are you kidding me?”_ She remembered how her head had ached at how much effort it took to restrain herself to _just_ an arched brow. _“A rumour? One Isabel told her.”_ Felicity had pointedly reminded him, sans eye roll. _“Not caring at all, what it might do for my future.”_

 _“She knows now.”_ And he’d looked at her, pleadingly. Had spoken, quietly. _“I won’t let this destroy your career.”_

 _God, tell me that wasn’t part of the reason why he’d done it?_ To save her future prospects?

Her voice had been firm. _“It doesn’t change that she did it.”_

 _“No, it doesn’t.”_ His expression was so earnest, she figured his need to exempt the reporter was due to his own need to make good out of a bad situation. Like he could recognise what that even looked like anymore. The good in the ugly. The good in himself. _“But I told her that.”_

Which meant she’d never, _ever_ do it again, right? Because she knows now. She’s been told like a _good_ little girl.

Susan Williams was a viper.

 _“It makes me feel so much better knowing that the woman you’re going to be caught with on alternate nights can be so easily dissuaded.”_ Or persuaded.

_“I-”_

_“Or that the same reporter who’d side with Isabel Rochev - a woman who has been all too willing to ruin the lives of several thousand employees - and write her lies without proof, can be bought with sex to outcry_ against _the same woman.”_

His mouth had closed. He’d just looked at her. Nothing to say to disclaim her.

And slowly, having made a point she’d never wanted to, she’d moved away from him. _“It doesn’t justify why you’re sleeping with her,”_ she’d uttered over her shoulder, _“beyond the fact that she’s a confident, attractive brunette who makes it very clear she’d like in your pants.”_

He hadn’t said a word… because he hadn’t been any. He’d known she was right. But he’d made a choice. Another in a long stream of choices that made her wonder just what the _hell_ was wrong with him. A reminder of where _she_ stood compared to where she’d always wanted to be.

Another example of how her influence, her presence in his life, did nothing.

 _“Be careful Oliver.”_ She’d said just as quietly as the room had become when she’d reached the doors. When she’d turned back once more. _“Not all snakes have venom, but they still bite.”_

Business as usual though.

It really hadn’t meant anything to him.

Somehow that was worse. Cold.

His acceptance of a half-life.

Since then - 2 years ago - he and Susan had maintained an _arrangement_ of sorts. One that made her shudder. Whenever a news story made its way anywhere close to Oliver, Susan would magically appear to write the story but only _after_ they went out for ‘drinks’.

Every _single_ time Susan walked past her desk after the fact (thankfully less than once per month or months), which sat next to Oliver’s office, she’d stop in front of her with a pleasant smile on her face.

_It’s barely 7:30am, are you always in this early? And how long have you worked with Oliver? Is the ‘partners’ thing recent? So, you’re friends? When did you start working for him? Why pick you, I mean… aren’t there at least a dozen better equipped men and women in the building with years of secretarial experience behind them? I’ve heard that Oliver leaves his office during work hours, sometimes: tell me. Why does he always take you with him?_

And whenever she told Oliver about it, her doubts were always brushed aside.

_“It’s nothing. She’s just… curious.”_

Curious.

_Idiot._

She wasn’t curious. Susan Williams _liked_ him. But her reporter’s instinct was strong in her. It came first and foremost in her life. Liking someone led to her needing to know everything about that person. It was bad for Oliver but what was bad for him, tended to be the kind of thing he hit at full speed.

It kind of reminded her of Laurel; both women, when they’d wanted ‘in’ on his life, they’d gone out of their way to discover more about him by themselves, because he hadn’t shared. Maybe they’d thought themselves entitled to know.

She knew that Susan was because she was keeping an eye on her through less than legal means, more than once heading the woman off in the wrong direction. This she _hadn’t_ told Oliver. _He wouldn’t hear me anyway_.

But that reaction from him, the way he’d shrug it off… she couldn’t think he reciprocated. At least not on the same level.  Not that she’d know; _he never talks about his personal life with me._

Well, he liked the drinks he’d have with the woman, the few times they’d have them. He liked pretending for a night that he was a normal guy in a world he understood.

He also liked to plead his case every other month by trying to sell her to an uncompromising Felicity and Diggle as a decent human being. _And if he can change out minds about her, then maybe it wasn’t all one big mistake, right? Uh huh._

But he didn’t ask about at Susan’s birthday and still didn’t know the date, didn’t actively draw her out or pursue her or wonder what she might be doing: there were no longing sighs and intrusive phone calls. There were smiles and, in the times since, she knew he’d started to enjoy meeting up with Susan, which was what happens when a man like him denies all kinds of warmth in his life. He accepts the warmth he lets in and starts to like it. Protect it. Like a victim of Stockholm. But there were no plans there. No efforts made to make him and Susan an official item.

_And yet he still-_

Stop.

Pointless.

_Get over it already._

You may be wondering why Felicity Smoak should be worrying even a _little_ bit about such a man. A man who uses sex as a tool; one who has _two_ booty calls currently on-going and a list of romantic entanglements that came back repeatedly to haunt and attack him.

A man who does it all right in front of her face, utterly ignorant of her feelings.

And why _should_ he see? They were friends. Partners. Professionals. He was free to do as he pleased, a man with many options and had never considered her as one of them. In the five years they’d known each other, there’d never been a sign from him that he was interested. She’d gotten the picture a long time ago.

He just… needed her to be there. In the background. Like a statue.

Yet, he’s also a man who never explains or even tries to show that he’d trust Felicity with a dead body - and has about a thousand or so times - but _wouldn’t_ trust any of the women with whom he shares saliva, with so much as his sister’s favourite colour.

It wasn’t Oliver’s fault that he’d never - not in five years - seen her that way. She couldn’t - _wouldn’t_ \- force feelings on him he couldn’t reciprocate, nor would she lash out at him for not being able to.

 _But there’s got to be a ‘best before end’ date on this thing though, right?_ On unrequited love. It never, _ever_ went away and she desperately needed it to, even knowing that it wouldn’t.

It wasn’t as if she’d led a solitary life in the time since meeting Oliver. She was single and, sure, she was married to her work, but she wasn’t _dead_. Nor was she the type to sit there and wait for a man to see her, especially since she knew he never would. Letting that go had been… well, difficult didn’t cut it. But maybe that was why she and Laurel could never be truly close. They were fundamental opposites.

Her first real romance, after a two-year absence, had been with Barry Allen. They’d been on one date, followed by a three-week fling in Central City after he finally woke from his coma. When she’d told Oliver that she was leaving for a while, he’d grunted from atop the salmon ladder.

 _“That’s fine.”_ He’d breathed all sweaty and perfect. “ _Sara’s coming down.”_ Words which destroyed the perfect.

Sara’s coming down, so I don’t need you here.

He hadn’t finished with Sara, not at the time, nor she him: she’d gone to make good with the league and had never actually said that she wasn’t coming back.

 _“Great!”_ She’d nodded, practically skipping out with her bag and coat in hand, because she hadn’t expected anything else. _“Have fun!”_

Still, if either Sara or Helena were in the Foundry, it was as if Felicity and her opinions didn’t exist, save for in Diggle’s eyes and ears alone. _Bless that man_.

It had been more _comfort_ than _relationship_ between her and Barry. A few weeks of bad food, fun movies, sweet sex and kisses in the park: talking. Lots of talking in between. It was incredibly nice.

Nice could be overrated.

Which was why three weeks, was all the time it took for it to end.

 _I’m not a greedy person_ , not by a longshot: but sometimes, there was only so far _nice_ and _good_ could take you. She’d needed more and so had he, which was why they ended so amiably. There’d been actual tears because, on paper, they were the flawless couple. In real life, they enjoyed similar things. They were fascinated by each other’s interests and hobbies and _God_ , did it feel good knowing the person you were talking to was interested in you. They liked spending time together and not all couples could say that. But most of all - _worst_ of all - they were in love with people who didn’t _see_ them.

Bottom line: neither of them could seem to let that love go, not fully.

 _That sucked to admit_. The torture of being the ‘friend’ to the person who makes your world spin on its axis, watching as they fell in love with other people. Iris West was Barry’s beautiful best friend who’d never considered him as anything _other_. Oliver Queen was Felicity’s beautiful partner who’d never seen her as anything _other_.

It had been a sad, if cathartic, parting. Necessary. It had made the second coming of Sara easier to deal with. _Ugh_ , she hated the term she’d coined for it. _I love Sara_. But watching the repeat had been a special kind of agony. Especially when Oliver had asked Felicity, in private, if she could search for apartments for him. It had come to a big fact nothing but, she’d felt it. It had stayed with her.

So, when Ray Palmer had waltzed into her life, she’d taken hold of the hand that had reached out for her and-

Bupkis from Mr Queen.

 _Hmm, maybe I’m more like Laurel than I thought_. Unable to let go of her love for one man.

…No.

Laurel held onto the idea that Oliver would choose her in the end. _So,_ _maybe not so alike_.

It irked though. She swore he didn’t even think her a _woman_ at times. Like, _Palmer who? You’re dating someone? Oh. Okay. Did you find the fire starter yet?_ She was one of the guys. It hadn’t registered on his radar because there’d been nothing to register for him. Though a little genuine interest or support in her love life _might_ have been pleasant…

But she couldn’t force out what wasn’t there. He cared about his IT girl. But _care_ and _interest_ were two very different things.

Ray had been a remarkably small threat to the security of Oliver’s company but after Felicity composed a civil work ethic and partnership between the two, there’d been an accord and pretty much nothing else to consider.

Ray lasted through Sara, through Helena and, finally, the league. But… he left. To bigger, better and brighter things.

 _“There’s more I can do now.”_ The fervent plea in his voice and the light in his eyes; she’d known he was leaving.

After fixing his Atom Drive - and practically re-designing the schematically defective bodysuit - he’d become certain he was meant for greener pastures. He’d asked her to go with him. But her heart was Starling, her home was-

Oliver.

_Ray didn’t need to know that._

For months afterwards, she’d been focused on reviving a city near-torn by a super virus and Oliver had been her sole help. And friend. And, for a time, she’d wondered. There’d been a moment here, a look there. A possibility. Less calculous, more Oliver. It didn’t have to mean anything other than friendship but he’d so standoffish with her at times, she wasn’t sure what anything meant.

Except, Susan. Elsie.

And so, David. Her _new_ Mr Nice Guy.

 _Marine_.

Her longest running relationship since Cooper. He hadn’t been as large as Oliver - _in the pectoral and all around muscular way, not that I’d know of any other way, not even a little bit and does that sound bitter?_ \- but there were times when she still missed how he’d shelter her with his umbrella, his coat and his body. The way he’d appreciate her colourful collection of panties and grin. The sly smile on his face when he wanted something, the smell of popcorn on his breath because he’d been addicted. His need for steak; all the time, steak. How he’d call her, without fail, at the end of each day to make sure she was doing alright.

They’d come to an end when they’d hit a brick wall.

 _Well, it’s what happens when one half of the party is unable to fully commit to a relationship that’s going places because she’s almost literally mistress to the City and the innocent people who need to be rescued living in it and not at_ all _because she managed to somehow REMAIN in love with a man who’d barely look her in the eye anymore._

Yeah… _brick, David, meet wall, me._

She’d nuked it when he’d realised she wasn’t prepared to leave Star City with him. She’d been his cute as candy hope for the future. He’d been her attempt at moving on. In some ways, they’d both been victorious. And they’d kept in touch afterwards: he was such a-

_Nice guy._

At this point, she’d started to wonder if _she_ were the problem. _I checked up on him at Christmas_. He was engaged! Asked if she wanted to attend. Asked if she wanted an invite for a single guest or guest and partner…

 _Perpetually single guest, no partner. Not for me_. Her longest standing relationship had been with mint-chip ice cream. At least it was consistent. And ice cream does what it says on the tub. _It never lets me down._

Three men in five years.

There could have been more.

There could have been Billy, the Police officer who’d made it all too clear he was interested. And Lee, the bartender who liked ‘quirky’ girls. Steven, QC’s head of finance. Chris, the coffee shop guy.

There could have been _nights_. Many of them, with faceless men who’d wanted the thrill of the unknown or just a few hours with her to let go in, but that wasn’t her thing. Sex without connection. _Maybe it should be_. Maybe she’d get somewhere. Maybe she’d understand more about Oliver, about Sara.

And, well, there was another reason why she hadn’t found another _someone_. Another Mr Right. Mr Nice Guy.

Each had helped mitigate the ache inside her, yes. But each had also exacerbated her insecurities, fanning them into ever reaching flames. Flames Oliver and his cycle of self-flagellation unknowingly surrounded with oxygen. A fire everyone in her life couldn’t see had started to consume her.

Like, say… her babbling.

Barry had, initially, found it cute.

Initially.

She’d seen, eventually, the confusion in his face. The way he couldn’t read the meanings beneath each ramble or appreciate the quirky, natural flow of each ramble. And when that happened, something pleasant became something tiresome. It felt like a chasm in understanding, one that had happened with others, one that made her deeply uncomfortable because, if her boyfriend couldn’t understand them, how could he hope to understand _her_. They were part of who she was.

Natural.

Ray always looked like he’d hit an error in processing whenever she started, and always asked her to stop because she spoke to fast for him to keep up with all the ‘science’ inside her.

Oliver used to _smile_.

Never seeming perturbed by the clear way they proved that she knew more than him. That she was smarter.

Never stopped her.

Never looked bored or discomforted.

…He didn’t smile at them anymore.

In fact, most of the time, it was as if - when she talked - he wasn’t even paying attention. Not listening, when he always used to. It was more than a little kick to the gut and she honestly hadn’t realised, until he did so, just how much his good opinion, his affection and all around admiration meant to her.

It led to a bigger fear.

What was it about _her_ , that made men eventually lose interest?

 _That’s enough of that sob story_.

She’d kept at it with Oliver. Kept deliberately trying to talk to him. To _move_ him in some way. Kept trying to bolster him and maybe, make him see that he didn’t have to do the things he did that hurt him. That hurt others. That created long lasting affects that could, one day, make his life unbearable.

It was simple really.

Felicity saw hope die in Oliver.

 _We all need hope_. Humans are simple creatures. Hope makes us thrive. _It can drive us mad too_. Make us regret our patience. But people like Oliver, who denied the promise that hope could bring, needed it just to keep on breathing. People like Oliver who pretended they didn’t hope, did nothing _but_ hope.

So, seeing it leave him like that…

It had felt like breaking. Like something beautiful was just _gone_ in him, and she was the only one who’d felt it - who’d _seen_ it - leave the earth, because a piece of her had left with it.

The year before, Roy had been killed by Damien Dhark.

He’d died on a dirty floor, in Oliver’s arms. The protégé and the Master. And she’d been on the coms throughout the whole thing. Again.

_“Roy! Come on, don’t give up. Don’t give up kid… Stay with me, come on! Fight! Roy! No! No…”_

It shouldn’t have happened, but nobody could have stopped it. Least of all Oliver, who Roy hadn’t blamed. He’d thanked him… except that’s what Tommy had done moments before he’d died too. _To Oliver, that must have felt like he’d failed_.

When he’d brought his body to the bunker, he’d looked like someone had gouged his heart of his chest with a spork. It had sure felt like her own internals were being scooped out. She’d cried, inept to do anything, as Oliver had laid him gently down, splayed on the table. Empty.

And Thea… _oh Thea_.

She’d been right there. She’d watched her brother carry in the body of the man she loved into the bunker without speaking. Without saying a word. Without doing anything.

And she’d blamed her brother for the death of the man she’d given her everything to. The promise of a future in the ring on her finger.

They’d been light on people that night: Laurel, busy with her court case, John’s kid had been sick, Curtis trying to maintain contact with a possible new recruit - Rene - who wasn’t being too friendly and Thea… Thea’s swollen belly.

Oliver had taken every agonizing second of it, however irrational Thea’s moment of madness may have been, in silence. Accepting it. Letting the blame and culpability wash over him. Letting himself feel some of what she felt.

_“It’s your fault. It’s all your fault! You knew I didn’t want him out there, but you took him anyway! He isn’t- WASN’T- He wasn’t like you! He was going to be a father, a daddy! Do you care?! You’re just like Malcolm! It shouldn’t have been him, it should have been you!”_

When Felicity had stepped in - because no matter the pain Thea had been feeling, his sister had no idea what the ramifications of her words could have and honestly, she couldn’t have listened to any more - Thea had responded exactly as Felicity should have foreseen but hadn’t, because familiarity can do things to a person.

Pregnant or not, Thea was dangerous. She’d taken the hand Felicity had gently place on her arm, only to twist it back and hurl her into the glass case housing Thea’s vigilante suit. Deliberate or no, the symbolism was effective.

There was a lot of anger still in Thea, after what her father had done to her. Anger for her mother, for her _dad_ , for Ra’s al Gul… Roy had been her therapy.

Then, suddenly, he was gone.

All Felicity could remember were the moments of blurred blinking and blunt aches, when she’d realised it had ended whilst she’d been lying on the floor, because Oliver had stood between them. Not speaking. Not blinking. Unable to comfort his sister or his friend. Clearly wanting to do both.

The message clear.

_Blame me, but don’t so this. Don’t do something you’ll regret._

Thea left, like a ghost. She never returned.

Silently, dully, he’d tended to the abrasion on her skull and the sprain on her wrist, but he hadn’t let _Felicity_ tend to the new wound inside him. As usual. Oliver: the walking wounded.

A couple of years before, he might let her in. When they’d started touching more, doing more together outside of the Foundry, finding reasons _just_ to talk to each other. Memories that felt more fantasy now, than reality.

But then-

Sara.

The perfection of a connection that Felicity couldn’t touch. Or reach. Or match.

A relationship that signalled the end of his attempts at closeness with Felicity - even after it bombed and repeated itself a few weeks later - where he just seemed to pull further and further away. Until they _didn’t_ touch, at least not beyond the perfunctory. The required.

 _You know, I’ve never been held by him?_ They hadn’t hugged, not once. At least, not without her initiating and his half-assed attempts at reciprocation.

As if it weren’t _allowed_ between them.

Or maybe, he’d just realised he didn’t like touching her. So, he’d stopped altogether. _It’s possible_ , and she could pretend to herself that the notion didn’t make her want to curl up somewhere and slowly die.

That night, what he _did_ eventually do, was carry Felicity over to his bed in the basement. What he _did_ do was whisper a _sorry_ to her for some unfathomable reason, but she’d been too muddled to do much of anything that didn’t involve sleep.

What he _did_ do after that was clean up Roy’s body. Alone. What he _did_ do was disastrous: he’d walked over to Laurel’s for some grief sex. What he _did_ do, was unintentionally restart a relationship with a woman he was no longer in love with - unintentional because when Laurel had walked into the basement the next day, making sure to kiss him on the lips before asking for that one-on-one sparring session he’d never made good on, smiling at Curtis like Roy hadn’t died the night before, he’d been the kind of _thrown_ that went on for hours afterwards; as if he’d been asking himself _how_ \- in the hopes of gaining back part of what Roy took with him when he died.

She fully re-joined the team, after months of being a semi-stand in.

Cue five months of bad.

_All the bad, lots of bad. So much bad._

Like one long headache.

Watching Oliver roam the streets, searching for any clue about where the enemy had gone to ground, the darkness rearing its head in him, the lack of light in his eyes: that was bad enough to witness, especially when he obviously didn’t want Felicity Smoak’s input. Or help.

Or _anything_ from her beyond being on the com.

Gone far away were the few quiet coffee mornings and rousing Big Belly dinners he’d share with her and with Diggle. The shot of vodka after a job well done or a hard night. The hand hovering over her back that had made a return not long before, as if he hadn’t realised. The very small smile she thought had been just for her, the one that had also started who itself in the weeks leading up to the death of their comrade.

After that?

Just ‘talk me in’. ‘Did you find it?’ ‘What’s taking so long?’ _‘Felicity.’_

What made it worse was the ugly truth.

In theory, Oliver and Laurel should have worked. On paper, like Felicity and Barry and Ray, they made sense. They had the history, the looks and idealism to allow for the most wanted match of the decade. Regardless of how Oliver felt or how he’d treated her, Laurel still loved him, and she showed it whenever she could. Despite the lack of anything resembling chemistry between them - _you can’t like a fire on ash_ , Dig had said - the kisses and reassurances they’d both seemed overeager to bestow upon each other was almost convincing. If a little… _wrong_. Their efforts to overcompensate.

Taking 20 steps backwards, past the extra 5 made.

They were a train wreck waiting to happen and Felicity and Diggle could only hold onto the handle bars.

Felicity wasn’t new to conflict with Oliver: they argued all the time or… used to. When he seemed to care more about himself. About her. And with each argument, came understanding. Came agreements. Came compromise. Sometimes she joked to herself that they were married save for the physical. All the negatives, none of the advantages. On those occasions an extra pint of mint chip didn’t go unwanted.

There were times when Felicity was more in sync with Oliver than John. Times when her ability to compartmentalise beat his and when her faith in him transcended her own comforts.

Oliver and Laurel… when they fought, they _fought_. And they fought about almost everything. It could grow vicious. And they never seemed to come to a level of acceptance with each other. They’d brush it under the rug, thinking it meant letting it go. That it meant, it was alright, because they cared about each other.

But they also couldn’t agree on anything.

Around the 20th time this happened, roughly four months into their relationship - the morning after a long-winded back and forth thing they’d had the night before, in the field, jeopardising an operation Felicity had been planning for 3 weeks - Felicity had been witness to the following:

_As if the clusterfuck of the weekend hadn’t happened, Oliver and Laurel exited the elevator together; walking towards Felicity space._

_Smiling, Laurel was asking Oliver something, who nodded along with whatever she was saying; as if the injury to his shoulder and the cut on Laurel’s forehead was acceptable. The words Felicity had been waiting to say - the argument in her head, something along the lines of screwing up her weeks’ worth of hard work by letting an informant (whether he was utter filth or not) get killed in the crossfire because of their inability to work as a unit - died on her lips._

_They lived in fantasy land and wanted to stay there. What was the point?_

_But she hit an extra low point when Laurel moved up on the dais where Felicity sat and, still smiling, had asked. “Hey, are you ok? Is something wrong?”_

_It was lucky she’d made John visit his wife. It really was._

_Like he knew, Oliver’s eyes landed on hers for 0.2 seconds before they fell again. Lips pressed together. Body shifting. Brow curving in a-_

_A defence. An excuse. A,_ please don’t ask any questions _._ Don’t bring it up.

_“Felicity-”_

_Felicity._

Please understand.

_She didn’t care that it had been a long time - too long - since he’d said her name like that, didn’t care what he thought he knew or that he’d seen her face and had translated it precisely._

_She just stood up and walked away from her computers, moving towards the stairs where a spare car sat just beyond it in the garage and didn’t look back._ Have at, the pair of you. Go nuts.

_“What’s wrong with her?” She heard Laurel ask, as if she had no clue and you know what? She probably didn’t._

_Oliver didn’t reply._

He had, however, given her a wide berth for the day after that. Had, for the first time in long enough that it almost made her start crying, bought her a coffee and donut for when she finally returned to the basement. 4 hours later. Where they’d waited for her return because, really, they couldn’t do shit without Big Sister.

And he’d _actually_ tried to talk to her after asking a frustrated Laurel to give her some space. That ended swiftly when he’d realised that his words held no weight on someone who could see right through his crap.

 _“The next time you and Laurel want to go out in the field together,”_ she’d told him in an undertone, eyes piercing into his, _“on a mission that I have to not only plan but lead,”_ where she had to guide them all in and out, safely, _“find someone else to go on the com for you.”_

_My space. My rule. My way._

Or the highway.

There was no way that he’d apologise out rightly. It had been too long for him to start flexing those unused muscles.

But he’d nodded, not looking away - giving her that - but made sure he’d never _have_ to do that.

It used to make her feel special, knowing that he wanted only _her_ on the coms. Now she knew better. He just didn’t _trust_ anyone else. He wouldn’t. Didn’t know how.

_Not exactly a compliment._

He also made sure to minimise going out into the field with Laurel beside him, much to Laurel’s confusion. Her hurt.

 _“I thought we were partners.”_ She’d said to him, bold faced and wounded.

He’d looked her in the eye, took a deep breath and quietly answered with. _“…We are.”_

_“You aren’t my employee. You’re my partner.”_

Those words were clearly worth lint now. Felicity, she’d held them close during the worst of times. Like a blanket of assurance. Of her worth. And there’d been truth in them: with her on the coms and him in the field, they were near-unstoppable. They flowed like water; it was a _good_ working chemistry. The right kind. The powerful kind.

Now, it seemed he was partners with every woman who came along, regardless of how bad, contentious, untrusting, or unsafe his relationship with them was. It wasn’t special.

 _She_ wasn’t special.

The words _definitely_ weren’t, because being in the field with Laurel meant Oliver had to watch her back 24/7. Time and energy wasted. The Black Canary had improved some; thanks to Sara, her form in particular, during a fight, had lost a lot of its openings, but she still lacked that instinct that John, her sister and Oliver naturally possessed. The one you attain from years of experience in violence, death and paranoia. _You’ve got to have eyes in the back of your head_ , Diggle had told Felicity once, during her weekly defensive seminars with him. He was thorough teacher. But it only added to the reminder that the two idiots playing ‘vigilante couple’ in the field couldn’t work together; not as a couple. Barely even as friends.

And Laurel would never let herself be led by her boyfriend, even if it was to her advantage. She was recklessly stubborn. But she wanted equality, earned or not. And Oliver- no matter the lies he told his girlfriend, Oliver didn’t trust her judgement. He only trusted his own.

He never gave her suggestions credence and it took Laurel 3 months longer than the 3 seconds Felicity had thought it would take, for her to notice. She’d never listened to his seasoned advice and he… he hadn’t seemed to care. As if he’d expected it.

Until these two things clashed and then there was no stopping the shouting matches.

Before, it had always been clear that Oliver was the de facto leader of the team. It had never been said, but it had been understood. Even Diggle, with his years of military leadership behind him, was superseded in this. Yet, for Laurel, every moment was an opportunity to disagree and every _single_ night became a fight for supremacy. And with every fight, it also became clear how much Oliver closed himself off from Laurel. How their relationship was only a balm. Something that negated the pain in him for a time.

Transient.

Sex was easy for him; he associated it with comfort. With affection. So, when did it become _empty_ to him?

During all of it - the whole five months that felt like five years - Oliver chose to pull back _further_ : his fullest extent. He didn’t say a word to Felicity about _anything_ outside of their nightlife or Queen Consolidated. They worked together for the company during the day and at night, spoke the language of crime fighting.

That was all. _Only_.

Was she dating? Had she watched that movie, read that book? Did she like the new fad being sold at that tech store, the upgrades to her favourite OP? Did she still have lunch with Diana? How was her mother? Where her dreams for the future the same or had they changed? Was she getting enough sleep? How was she?

Did he like the new coffee at Jitters? Had he heard from Barry lately? How was babysitting Diggle’s adorable baby girl? Had Nyssa been in contact recently? Was he alright? Did he need to shop for more shirts and socks because of all the ones he’d bloodied and ripped? Did he ever feel overwhelmed?

There was _nothing_.

Depressing was one word for it. Heart breaking was two more. _God, it still hurts. Why does it still hurt?_

Part of it was because, she didn’t know what he was thinking.

She’d missed him almost three years ago, when she remembered seeing the clear difference in him for the first time. When the regular touches reduced dramatically, the long conversations ended, and the time spent alone faded. She’d missed him a year ago, before _Roy_. When she thought he’d started to return to her, a little.

Return to her, _as if he’s ever been mine_.

There was this place inside her now: an area that felt solid, like an organ she’d grown. Untouched. Filled with the ever present love she had for him, some sadness, worry and the kind of longing that ached and ached and ached. The part of her that continued to silently shout _why_.

_What did I do?_

It hadn’t _just_ hurt her to be so thoroughly pushed away. But, she thought she might know part of the reason he could be doing it.

Going by the way he treated the people he cared about, it was possible he didn’t want any of what made him who he was, to touch her. As if he was some sort of disease. Reverting back into himself, becoming unattainable; it was defensive, repetitive, but not for himself. And while it wasn’t something he could guarantee, nor could he control her emotions, he did do his level best to uneven the playing field. As if she was more breakable than everyone else. Even his sister.

As if she was a pretty flower. To look at but not touch because she’d wither and die if he did.

_Ridiculous._

It was, in one way only, exquisite of him.

It was also, in _all_ ways, condescending and insulting as hell. Telling of how he saw himself. And utterly destructive. It made her wonder _why_ all over again. Why _just_ her? Thea could come and go, shooting arrows into people and jumping from building to building and Oliver could take it. But mention going to get a coffee with Felicity and, _not now_. Bring up lessons at the gun range with Diggle and, _she doesn’t need them_.

Sara and Laurel were a safe-zone; he’d sort of… _there’s no nice way to say this, is there?_ He’d been there, done that. Worn the t-shirt. Ridden the Merry-go-round multiple times, then had gone in the for the ensemble suit, complete with vest. Firsts, seconds and thirds. Fourths. They could all scream at each other until the cows came home and it wouldn’t be anything new.

But Felicity was-

What?

 _Not much_ friending _going on lately._

Yet, she knew he needed her voice in his ear, her eyes on the cameras, her fingers opening doors and unearthing secrets. He didn’t want her mixed up and turned about in more ways by him because, honestly; she was a _machine_ and she fixed various areas of his life. If he’d wanted her more involved, she’d _be_ more involved. In all sorts of personal ways. So, maybe he thought if he did the opposite - if he treated her like she only _worked_ with him, that they weren’t really the family she felt they’d all become to her over the years and didn’t spend two thirds of her day with him - she’d _stop_ being all these things that he needed.

He didn’t _need_ Laurel and that was without trying. Something that became evident when Dig - who’d been pushed to his ever-loving limit - eventually said what she’d been thinking for too long last October.

_“I’m going for take out.” Passing Felicity who’d closed her eyes, cupping her aching forehead in her palms - the same headache that had been killing her slowly for weeks - he placed a tender hand on the back of her neck in silent communication. “When I come back, this stops for good,” ‘this’ being the routine that Oliver and Laurel were in the throes of and that Dig’s finger indicated between them in the air, “or I don’t come back.” It wasn’t an empty threat. “And I’ll be taking Felicity with me.” He shouted back as the doors to the elevator closed._

Ten seconds of silence after he’d left, Oliver had spoken.

_“This isn’t working.”_

_It made Felicity hurt inside, the way Laurel stared at him. Like it was a shock. A betrayal. As if she hadn’t known._

_“It’s never worked.”_ _He continued seamlessly, like he’d wanted to say it for a while. “And it isn’t going to.” He shrugged, defeated. “We tried.”_

_Throat moving, eyes justifiably bitter, Laurel muttered. “And how long have you been sitting on that?”_

_He didn’t answer; not a word. He just looked away._

_So, Laurel softly asked… visibly scared. “Fourth time’s the charm, right?”_

Oh honey.

_Laurel didn’t smile or try to joke it off. She was searching for the opening she thought they’d left each other in the past, even after all these years. And Felicity understood. She’d had a feeling Laurel had been waiting a long while for Oliver to look her way again. And when he had, she’d probably entertained the idea that he’d decided that this was ‘it’ too. The forever it. That he could be with her._

_That he was all healed and ready and that it was all, and always had been, meant for her._

_But love didn’t work that way. You couldn’t just wait for someone to sort themselves out; either you dived in_ with _them or you moved on. Love can change over time; it was supposed to. Stronger, weaker, better, worse. It’s design could change from romantic to platonic, from platonic to explosively sexual and so on and so forth._

 _She shouldn’t be waiting for him to stop looking elsewhere._ He _shouldn’t think going to her in the middle of the night, because he knew she’d be receptive, was acceptable. Even if it was._

_It was pitiful. Toxic. Disrespectful on both sides._

_After watching him for years - at work, on camera, listening over the coms - Felicity had always known that Oliver needed someone. He didn’t do well alone. He tried really hard to deny that fact. The five years_ before _his return should have shown him that he couldn’t. Unconsciously, he searched for someone to break the spiral of lonely. Solitude wasn’t his natural state, so he’d gone to the only person he thought he_ could _go to when Roy had died. The only person he thought might understand. But Felicity knew: Oliver had seen it as a temporary fix - much as he had with Sara - and Laurel had seen it as a third shot at happiness._

_Sometimes love isn’t enough for a couple. Even with trust, healthy communication, respect and commitment - things neither of the pair had managed to maintain at the same time - it’s not always strong enough. Not all love leads down an altar. Not all love stays the same._

_Sometimes, it’s weak._

_Like his words carried the weight of an ocean, it took Oliver almost a full minute to whisper a response; his face filled with remorse. “I don’t think so Laurel.”_

_No fourth time,_ this _time. Break the cycle._

 _Felicity would believe it… except after watching him for 5 years; she knew that being by himself led Oliver down old, broken pathways. He’d rather do that than be alone. He’d rather do_ that _than search for something_ real _. So, saying this? Yep: she’d believe it when it came true._

_“The next time you need something to dull whichever pain it is you’re feeling on that particular day, do us all a favour.” Lips thinned over grating teeth, Laurel’s voice shook. “Go kill someone instead. You’re better at that than you are at love.”_

_Then again, Laurel could nuke the tiniest possibility herself - at having_ any _kind of relationship with the man she clearly hadn’t been able to let go of - with hasty words that she’d never be able to take back._

It would stay with Oliver, what she’d said. How she’d said it. Felicity knew.

Those were last words on their relationship. Ashes in Laurel’s mouth. _Why even do that?_ Par for the course. And the way she’d looked at him, like he’d just destroyed her world, told Felicity that even Laurel could be a fool. That even Laurel - his first love - didn’t know him as well as she’d thought she did.

That she’d regret those words but _wouldn’t_ regret that she’d gotten the last word in. To win like that and _revel_ …

And when she’d left, she’d taken her ‘suit’ with her.

She still hadn’t returned with it. Later, they’d feel her absence: without Roy and Thea, Laurel’s exit made it clear just how much Oliver, John and herself had started to depend on their presence. Just how much the notion of bringing to heel rough and ready prospect, Rene, was wearisome.

They’d had to start working triple time once more.

There were moments, like with Sara, when Felicity sort of missed Laurel. Though not a fan of the way she and Oliver brought out the worst in each other, she was still another woman for her to talk to in the basement. As much as she loved her boys, as much as she was easily adaptable, as much as she’d never really needed the contrast of opinions between sexes - she got along on better with the opposite sex anyway - it had still been pleasant. They’d go out sometimes before the disastrous hook-up, after a mission, for a few drinks. Laurel had confided in her.

She missed Johanna.

Johanna who’d moved from Starling city after the league of assassins had seen fit to target it. Her close friendship with Laurel hadn’t been enough to make her stay, not after loosing her brother. Not after meeting a man who could make her very happy but who lived in another state. It had been 2 years since then and Laurel still missed her. Missed Sara. Missed _Tommy_. Missed having a friend she could confide in.

 _“I did the wrong thing.” Down the hatch, whiskey number 3 and,_ um, Laurel doesn’t even like whiskey, _which was a warning sign for Felicity that maybe she ought to cut and run but it was like Laurel needed it to prepare for what she was about to say. “With Tommy. With Oliver. I…”_ Oh Good _. They were right there already._

 _Laurel’s lips twisted, eyes looking unusually bleak for a woman who managed to make other people wonder why_ they _hadn’t become a lawyer and gained the interest of Starling’s most attractive billionaire too because, if that amount of self-satisfaction were possible, they’d all buy it bulk. “Tommy was like how Oliver used to be before- before he went away.” And why was it still so hard for her to say that Oliver was shipwrecked on an island to start a journey that lasted 5 horrifyingly miserable years? “Except without the cheating. And the drugs.” Felicity hid her face behind her own, glass; washing back the contents._ I’m 100% certain that Tommy was still doing drugs until he started sleeping with you, Laurel. _“There was something really cute about the way he was out of his depth with me. He’d never had to really try before, you know? I was flattered.” There. She admitted it._ That must have been hard for her to say… annnnnd there goes whisky number 4. Oh boy. _“Maybe it was fate or something, you know? I’d fallen into their orbit as a teenager,” and wasn’t that an unlikely story because, how did the daughter of a cop become best friends with Starling City’s richest sons, “and they both have feelings for me. I had feelings for them. Have.” She corrected mulishly and no; Felicity would never find out how they became friends,_ pity _. Nor would she discover if her have/had thing was in reference to Laurel’s ‘Ollie’ or Laurel’s ‘Tommy’._

_Too be honest, she didn’t really want to hear more anyway, “Um, so what-”_

_“-I love Ollie.” But Laurel was on a tipsy roll. “No matter what happens, I can’t seem to stop. But I wish I’d known that I couldn’t stop,_ before _allowing Tommy to get in so far, you know?” She peered over at Felicity - like,_ you agree with me don’t you _? - before swigging back the last of her drink. “I was trying not to love him. I was trying to love Tommy.” Her eyes squinted at her reflection in the panelling behind Felicity’s head. “Was that so wrong?”_

Oh _,_ I…

_Well, that was one answer. Laurel’s answer. Right._

_And_ , why is she asking me?

_Felicity, being a good listening buddy, gave her a little head jerk with her lips shut tight, which could have been a nod. It could have been a shake. Because, no. She didn’t know. She didn’t agree. It messed up friendships if you delved in deep for the wrong reasons, like Laurel had. Knowingly. Strangers was one thing. Life long friends were another._

_Laurel sighed. Then smiled at herself, at the sight of her hand curved round the glass. “If only I’d been honest with myself. For me, Ollie was the one. The only-”_

And Felicity didn’t need to remember the rest. _Nope_. Laurel could keep that memory to caress.

But she missed Thea too. Their Sunday movie nights with Roy. Cocktail hour at the Sol. And she missed Sara, who’d done the strangest thing before leaving years before.

_“I’ll drop in, now and then.” Almost squishing her in a bear hug, Sara had muttered. “Felicity?”_

_“Mm hm?”_

_“…I’m sorry, okay?”_

_It made her silent for a moment. Sara was leaving for good this time, why was she sorry? “What for?”_

_Sara’s deep breath, made something in Felicity chest tighten; made worse by Sara’s whispered, “I’m just sorry.”_

She still didn’t know what to think of that.

Afterwards, with the minutes that had followed Laurel’s departure, nothing was done. It was over. And Felicity had still suffered a headache.

 _They’re lucky_. The ones that could leave whenever they wanted: whenever it hurt _just_ enough. Laurel. Thea. Sara. Curtis, who popped in and out whenever he pleased. Rene, who wouldn’t give them the time of day because he had an aversion to authority. Whenever they were tired of the life, or sick of Oliver. Whenever they wanted to be selfish. _I can’t be_. She’d been heartbroken before, because of Oliver or other things and still, she hadn’t left. She was committed to the mission. She came second to it.

Sometimes she wondered; _was Oliver grateful for that?_ That no matter what, she couldn’t leave?

And it was at those times, that she felt like the worst kind of person. _Conceited._ But maybe she’d earned the right to it. _Or maybe I’ve just been more tired than usual lately_.

After Laurel had left, she’d still sat there; her headache continuing to throb and relief had been nowhere in sight.

But then she’d felt Oliver’s hands on her shoulders.

She’d stilled, chest clenching at the _zing_ she felt course down her spine. At the goose bumps that had followed and he’d had to have seen them. Breath catching; inhale trapped somewhere along her oesophagus. Eyes wide open. Words swirling in her head. _W-what is he doing?_ And, _this isn’t… he never does this._ And, _I fell asleep didn’t I? I fell asleep and now Dream Oliver is-_

Dream Oliver had never felt so real or been so… forward.

There’d been no hesitance in him, but the carefulness in his fingertips was a reminder. The fine trembling in his touch a clear indication that, no: he never touched her like this. It was a very real moment and it would make a confused mess of Felicity Smoak. It had been too long since he’d last placed a hand to her shoulder and wasn’t that pathetic? That she remembered.

Slowly, he’d pressed in. Searching. Warm. Standing right behind her.

Her mouth had opened, _Oh_.

She didn’t think to say a word: too tired, too stressed. But she’d kept still as his fingers kneaded. Manipulating the tight muscles in her neck. Gently coaxing back her tension headache.

It had been stunning: his large hands - so capable of violence - could be that soft. And-

_“I’m sorry.”_

It was all he’d said.

Three minutes later, he’d finished. He’d walked off. He’d left her alone again. Another moment that came and went like a puff of smoke.

And that was that.

Oliver returned to the _slightly_ less grumpy version of himself, but still so very resigned to what he thought his fate was. Diggle, as if in deliberate contradiction, took a turn for chipper and showed it by forcing Oliver to leave the basement every so often. By making him listen to the tales of his toddler and her next adventure and discussing his happiness for the son that was on the way. Hoping it would make Oliver want more from life. And Felicity-

She didn’t change at all. She just watched. _I’m Giles, but without the cool purpose_.

She knew, you see. Any chance of a happy ever after Oliver saw himself having, had died with Roy. With Thea’s blame and the fact that even now, she still couldn’t look her brother in the eye. Guilt and rage and grief still so very strong in her.

Oliver killed Damien Dhark.

Thea knew he’d done it for her.

Another sociopath, nobody would miss. But no matter how appalling a criminal he was, going out to kill him for his wrongs, was still premeditated murder. And Thea didn’t regret it, that Oliver had killed him. He’d taken her love, so Oliver took his life.

Even then, she hadn’t seen the ‘fair’ in it. She had to live without Roy.

But Oliver had murdered him.

It started a chain reaction; one Oliver knew would happen. Knew and didn’t care. Soon after that, he started employing methods that he hadn’t touched since the first year of his return. Killing. Torture. Injuries that led to permanent physical disabilities in future, and, _I don’t know: maybe he’d had enough_.

So had Thea, who - without Roy - felt the same darkness encroach upon on her.

 _“I can’t look at him.”_ Thea had told her, the night before she’d booked herself a one-way ticket to Cuba to escape the fallout. _“He did it for me but I can’t stay here and watch him destroy himself because of me.”_

 _“He’s not doing this because of you,”_ no; he’d done it because he’d given in. Choosing the easy way over the hard, because he’d had enough of trying. Because he’d given up hope. _“Don’t blame yourself for that.”_

 _“But I blamed him.”_ She’d whispered; proof of her pregnancy and grief in the pallid darkness under her eyes. _“I don’t know how to… not blame him.”_

So, feeling a poison run in the one relationship Thea and Oliver still had that was supposed to be untouchable, Thea had left.

True love, marriage, kids, a family; to Oliver they where dreams only attainable in sleep, which might have been why he’d stopped sleeping.

He’d started killing again - _there you go Laurel_ \- as if he didn’t see the point in _not_ anymore. As if the last 3 years of progress, hadn’t been any progress at all. Wasted time.

 _“If I don’t stop him,”_ he’d stated about criminal number 1056 before shooting an arrow into his chest, _“he’ll just kill again.”_

So, even though his behaviour with women - _women who know exactly what they’re getting into, in his defence_ \- hurt to watch, what hurt _more_ was that he’d made a decision not only to accept it, but to never strive for more.

More than empty sex.

“And I don’t know what to do to fix it.” She murmured into her hand.

It wasn’t her job. But she cared about him. More than cared.

She’d fallen for him in a matter of moments and now, years later, all she wanted was to see him happy. _Why can’t he just do what I tell him to_ , she joked to herself before sighing. “Oliver…”

“What?”

Hand slapping off her face to the desk - heart leaping into her throat - she spun round in her chair. “ _Oliver_.”

There he was.

Now some people don’t see it. A _lot_ of people don’t.

It was in the way he stood. His stance and general demeanour. It was in the heavyset of his shoulders, the slope of his spine, the tautness at his throat… in how he never seemed to relax, which begged the question: how did the women he slept with handle that?

 _Did_ they even handle it?

Not that it mattered.

In one sense or another, Oliver was a walking time bomb.

“You already said that.” Almost flippant and that wasn’t a smile, but something close was _just_ there. Out of reach. It was the most she could bring out in him these days. _Oh_ , she never thought she could miss the time of Slade and his Mirakuru madness. “Sorry.” He added, seeing her knuckles stand out as her hands gripped the arms of her chair. “You were a little distracted.” And that voice didn’t help: his usual masculine, husky maleness never used to sound quite so… _grey_. “Thought you heard me.”

“Wild animals who hunt at night wouldn’t hear you.” She jested, trying for the thousandth time that month to lift the gloom. A little.

It fell flat.

 _When am I going to admit to myself that I don’t have it?_ The ability to heal whatever was crushing him.

He was several feet from her and, hands deep in his trouser pockets - _that’s a nice move, really nice_ \- he walked across her space. Her computers were literally the highest level in the basement with steps leading up to them, and it was a large enough area to take a stroll around. “Hm.”

The skin under his eyes were a dash of murky purple. _Getting darker every day_.

There was no point talking about it: he’d ignore her. “So, what’s up?” Head tilted, she crossed her right leg over her left - one blue heeled shoe hanging above the ground - and it no longer occurred to her that Oliver could see a great deal of her thighs: he’d never cared about her that way anyway. He’d seen plenty of perfect thighs before and hers weren’t perfect. It didn’t matter. “You look pensive.”

And he did. Like he was mulling. “I am.” He hummed, lips turned down in a frown as he stared unseeing at her desk. “I’ve been elected as a candidate for mayor.”

 _Say what now?_ It was completely unexpected and nothing to do with their work lives, not entirely. She almost toppled sideways to the floor. “Uh- I’m sorry?” Baffled, she closed her eyes briefly; shook her head once. Hard. “You applied?” _For Mayor?!_

“No.” He barely spoke to breathe, still not looking at her. “Susan sent in a missive: she’s trying to sell me to the public as an applicant.”

Susan.

Her stomach twisted. “Right.” Legs uncrossing, Felicity stood. “Alright,” she started cautiously, “why?”

He shrugged; hands still in his pockets. Eyes still unfocused on the desk. “I don’t know.”

Felicity thought she might.

Susan had been… pushing a little recently. After the Oliver and Laurel catastrophe, Susan had strolled right back and he’d let her. Offering to spend more time with him, asking him the kind of questions she never had before.

_And her file._

The reporter had started a so-called _secure_ file on him - 1 _, 2, 3, seriously?_ \- dating back to the death of Damien Dhark, one of Star City’s most infamous deaths, but Felicity doubted it had started then. Some of the details were prior the city’s renaming and a little _too_ intrusive to be labelled as unbiased accounts. Somehow, through contacts Felicity hadn’t known about, Susan now knew that for at least several months when Oliver was _supposed_ to be shipwrecked he was, instead, in Russia.

There were other things that told Felicity she was piecing together his secret. Even more troubling, she was writing her research like she’d write an article. And, well, none of it was romantic. Just deeply intrusive.

And illegal. It went against her contract, which _did_ actually include - Felicity had discovered - a lengthy statement regarding journalistic integrity, to sleep with her stories. Delving a little deeper, Felicity had discovered that it wasn’t really the first time Susan had _dated_ a famous/rich man for a potential story, but she’d stopped there for Oliver’s sake. Susan seemed to be his only source of contentment these days, as much as Felicity didn’t like her.

Except, after looking into it - after factoring in her ambition - it made sense. Oliver Queen, CEO, Mayor AND the Arrow? Story of the century.

There was _one_ other possibility: Susan was falling for her story and wanted him to know in the only way she knew how. By putting him up as a candidate for Mayor. By making him see that she _believes_ in him.

Like _Felicity_ believed in him.

Whether he wanted it or not.

And Oliver hadn’t really _listened_ to Felicity in- _I can’t remember_.

Maybe he’d listen to-

“And how are you feeling about that?” She forced out because she honestly couldn’t take more of _that_ particular train of thought. “You know, beyond pissed off and pressured?”

Sighing, he sent her a look; eyes barely glancing to her.

She stared back candidly. “You know you _can_ feel less than good about the women you sleep with.” _You don’t have to think the world of each and every one, even after they treat you like crap._

But he didn’t engage her - shocker - his eyes already far away. “You know I can’t be mayor.”

There was something there, in his voice, and it made her ask the next question. “But… do you _want_ to be?”

Did Oliver _want_ to become the Mayor of Star City?

“Of course not.” And, as if _feeling_ her gaze, he sighed again, turning. Butt half sitting, half leaning against her desk, he slumped _in_ ; as if he was constantly exhausted.

Then, _finally_ , he looked her in the eye. “I mean, I always wanted to do more for this city.”

_Oh. My. God._

“You mean,” she almost choked out because, no matter what he’d just said, she focused everything in her on the little spark inside him that had just proved he still _hoped_ , even if it was nihilistic, “besides everything _else_ that you do?”

A self-derisive breath had him looking down. “I _kill_ people.” But sounded _small_. “I bring criminals to justice, to jail, but there’s always more. It never ends. In the grand scheme of things, what do I actually accomplish for Star City?”

He was asking.

He was asking _her_.

Stepping as close as she dared to, which wasn’t very, Felicity placed her fingers on the desk top. Needing the slight lean. Heart racing ridiculously fast because, this felt new. For all intents and purposes, it _was_ new. “You never did this job for a thank you.” She reminded him. “And you-”

“Don’t sugar-coat it.” He didn’t raise his voice, the words weren’t growled but she knew he was dead serious, because for the first time in a long time, he was looking at her again. _With_ her. And he wasn’t breaking eye contact. “Sometimes, I walk through parts of the city and I see the broken promises that were made over the years to fix it.” Staying silent, still as stone - letting him know that she was hearing him, feeling like this was supremely important for some reason whilst simultaneously sad for his fatalistic tone - she watched. Listened. Enraptured. Praying to God. Again, for the first time in a long time, he didn’t shift away. “I see the remains of my fight with Malcolm, with Slade.” He paused, probably remembering. “The League. Damien, Prometheus- I see the remains of the Queen Mansion and I know that the business would be dead and gone by now if it weren’t for you.”

Ok, _that_ she wouldn’t let stand. “Oh, don’t you dare do that.” She near-threatened, voice low and he looked like he already wanted to dismiss what she was about to say to him, fair or otherwise. “Don’t undermine the work you’ve put into the company, the hours and hours you spent _teaching_ yourself how to run it. The crap you took from the board. The respect you’ve earned from the partnerships you paved way for, the way you lifted it out of near-poverty…”

“You taught me.” He whispered, and she’d almost missed it: the ghost in his eyes. The overwhelming feeling that he’d accomplished _nothing_ since his return five years ago. “ _You_ showed me what to do and I followed you, step by step.” He sounded sick of himself and his face echoed the sentiment. “I took credit for your work.” He took a breath, “I’ve been doing that for years.”

Brows arched, “Oh, have you now?” her head titled, gaging him side on because where was this coming from? “I make my own choices, remember?” And he looked down again, as if expecting this. Expecting it and _disagreeing_. “You do realise that you actually have to learn what you _don’t_ know, right?” And if she sounded a little cynical, a lot frustrated and just a tad desperate, then so be it: he was being ridiculous, but it was because he was stuck in a spiral of worthlessness. Hopelessness. She wouldn’t let him continue to fall down that hole. “I may have given you your business acumen, but you’ve grown beyond that now.” Far beyond. “You brought the company up from insolvency and now, 100 new employees are currently experiencing the benefits of full dental and childcare. When the city needs something now, who do they turn to? Queen Consolidated.” And she wasn’t wrong.

He didn’t move. He was listening, but his expression didn’t change.

“It’s been so rewarding, seeing you do that.” She admitted and it didn’t bother her if he saw how much she cared just then. She’d never lied about wearing her heart on her sleeve and she knew that he’d already seen before just what that care meant. Saw it and hadn’t acted on it. _Message received_.

“You know, in a way you’re a prime candidate for Mayor.” Brow tapering, he stared at her. Like, _what?_ “You’re famous. Well known. _Liked_.” Whatever personality had been in his expression, it left as quickly as it had appeared. “Trust me Oliver, likability is half the game. But not only that, you’ve made clear progress with company and people see that. Half the good news in the papers these days is in relation to Queen Consolidated.”

Though he wasn’t looking at her anymore - he’d pulled back - he didn’t look like he was going to leave and she hated that she had to try to read him; that it didn’t come as effortlessly as it once had.

“You once said, you rely on me.” He hadn’t, not in a long while. Not truly. And it was strange seeing the literal nothing in his face compared to the way his hands were fisted in his pockets. As if he hated the reminder that he was human, that he’d once admitted that he’d needed her in some way and… yes, that hurt. “Don’t insult the _years_ we’ve spent doing this,” she breathed, a hand gesturing to their surroundings, her eyes imploring, and she watched as the reminder rippled through his eyes, “and the rise of a company we kept from falling under Isabel’s thumb.” And that may have been a couple of years ago but, her presence was still felt whenever failure came. “Yes, there’s so much we could have gotten right.” With deliberate use of _we_ , her voice lowered, and she allowed herself that last inch closer. With him half sitting, there was barley any difference in their heights and she felt her stomach flutter with it. That eh was still sitting there. That he might have come down here, to talk in a way they hadn’t done in so long. _Please_. “But we aren’t Barry Allen. We can’t go back through time. We can’t undo what we’ve done.” The fractured aches of the past - left untreated - fluxed across his face for a mad second, and something in his eyes shuttered. They were quite dark now. “We can’t waste the time that we have, focusing on what’s been and gone.” And as she took a shaky breath - it had been a while since they’d spoken like this - she watched his throat move as he swallowed down whatever was tasted bad. The truth? The pain? She didn’t know. “Do you think I’ve wasted my time here?” She asked in a rush of air because she was already losing him, wasn’t she? “Do you think it’s all been one giant waste?”

His eyes flickered shut.

…He did?

“I don’t.” _She_ swallowed this time, voice threatening to wobble as the cold ugliness in him right now, rang in her gut. “I love what we do here,” she whispered, back straightening, watching his brow lines deepen, hating that she couldn’t tell what it meant. “There are so many places where you’ve had an influence Oliver Queen.” Maybe it was the firmness and surety - even with her unsteady tone - in her voice or maybe it was the use of his last name that made his eyes open again. “You used to see them.” _You used to believe._

Any second now, he’d leave; she could see it. And if not bolt, maybe he’d lash out at her because the amalgamation of different levels of dark warring in the blue of his eyes, was almost too much for most people, never mind one who claimed he’d given up but could still wonder about mayoral candidacies. 

A man who carried the weight of a mountain, the burdens on his back and more than half were of his own making. His very own Purgatory. Constant suffering. And he’d shown her there was nothing she could do.

Except…

“If it takes me half my life,” she softly began, “I’ll show you.”

There was a moment where he stilled. Where his eyes lifted only to pause half way to her face. Mouth very slightly open for breathing. Eyes still dark, still full. Still haunted.

Far away from her.

Begging for help.

A warning to be left alone.

“I’ll _show_ you the good you’ve done if I have to. Piece by piece.” She let the truth of her words alter her, influence her mouth, until she was smiling. Until her eyes were shining with the true pride she felt for him. “I’ll show you how you’re needed.” _Just let me show you Oliver_.

_Let me in._

She let it stroke over him, _please don’t run away_ , and she hadn’t meant the words to be husky. But holding in her feelings for so long meant she couldn’t help it. There was so much to say and do and feel.

Maybe that was why he licked his lips, closing his mouth. Maybe that was why he muttered to the floor, “We make a good team, don’t we?”

Her heart thudded pathetically, because of the _we_. The us. The team within the team that they’d once been. So close, she could smell his cologne and it was unfair really, how he got everything - even his scent - _just_ right to match what she craved. What her body needed. How long had it been since he’d given her this kind of attentiveness? Since he’d vocally spoken about _them_. Since he’d allowed his eyes to look at her like she meant… more. And she could only pray, that he-

“But I don’t need it. Not anymore.” Something in his face just…died. She saw it happen, helpless to stop it. As always. And as always, he took her with him. “I don’t _want_ it Felicity.”

He didn’t need her, didn’t want her help.

But what else could she offer if not…

For one unbearable second, her heart squeezed tight enough to miss a beat.

“I made a decision.” There was nothing to indicate that this cost him, that he felt a thing about it beyond practicality. As if it was a banal subject. As if _she_ was unnecessary. As if he didn’t know how much he was hurting her. In fact, he looked a little puzzled. “Years ago.”

Puzzled.

“I used to rely on you a lot. For everything. It was obvious, to a lot of people. To _me_. It was a little… ridiculous, I mean,” he cleared his throat, shrugged a shoulder, “yeah. So, I decided to _not_ anymore. Not for more than the bare minimum.” His slight smile was this _twisted_ thing, full of the darkness in him that he kept closed off from her, full of things she didn’t recognise. It said, _you’re off the hook; see?_ “I had to let you go at some point. I didn’t always succeed. But I’d _decided_.” And it fell off his face quicker than his failed attempt at pasting it there. Leaving nothing behind. “I mean, you were there; you know that.”

She didn’t know anything.

Her pulse was throbbing in her ears. “What are you saying?” She dragged up the words from somewhere deep and had she ever _sounded_ like that before? Like she’d had to try with everything she had, to speak.

He didn’t seem to notice the difference; too concerned with checking his phone, which was beeping.

But his exhale was sharp. “Felicity, you know by now that in the field you’re my eyes but anything else…” He trailed off like, again, _you know this already_.

For anything else, you’re not needed.

She was just looked at him. Too dumbfounded to respond at all.

“Anyway, I’ve got to take this.” He said to her, looking at the screen of his cell. “And, ah… thank you.” Frowning at whatever he was looking at, he spared her a conciliatory eye-flicker, which was how he didn’t notice her stupor. “For trying to help me. But I don’t need it, Okay? Just concentrate on your own life.”

Derogatory.

Since… _since when has Oliver ever been_ \- since when had he used that tone, that-

Belittling dismissal.

On her.

Like the tip of a whip as it cracks across her ribcage. The rest of her just didn’t break with it.

_“…concentrate on your own life.”_

As if her life wasn’t inexplicably tied to his. As if all this time, they’d been leading _different_ lives. As if everything they’d been through, they hadn’t actually been through together at all.

As if he thought that he hadn’t completely shattered her with his uncharacteristically careless words.

But he was already strolling away, “Chairman; I was expecting your call,” phone to his ear, towards the showers-

Leaving her standing there.

Alone.

World tipped over, without an axis, into silence. Floored. Numb.

She stared dumbly at the place where he’d been.

_All this time._

All this time, years of _aching_ loneliness, of wondering what had happened to spark the change in him… she’d known he’d had ridiculous notions of keeping people at arm’s length for their safety, she’d _known_ he’d taken several steps away from her, but for some unfathomable reason-

She’d thought _he_ might not have known.

“I’m such an idiot.” she breathed, unseeing.

That maybe it had been this subconscious _thing_ he’d had no idea about. Like the multitudes of other things that he had no idea he did to himself. A defence mechanism of some kind - all of Oliver’s defence mechanisms lay in being alone – and that, perhaps, he hadn’t understood, fully, the damage. Or hadn’t thought about it past an instinctive need to pull back. Thoughtless, perhaps. Reckless and miserable, maybe. A cry for help, possibly. But, understandably, Oliver.

But _this_ … he’d made a choice. A conscious, tactical effort to push her away. And keep her there. Like she was a nuisance-

_“It was obvious, to a lot of people. To me.”_

-A weakness. An embarrassing secret.

He’d known exactly what he was doing. He knew the extent of the damage. He’d cultivated it himself. Had _watched_ her suffer for it-

Had he, though?

If he could do this, if he could _be_ this way with her by choice, then did he really know her at all? How could he have seen what his distance did to her when he wasn’t even trying to see her? When he was _deliberately_ not looking at her.

How hard had he tried? Had he _had_ to try? Had it taken a lot of effort? Had it been difficult at all? Had he second guessed himself, even if for a moment? How easy had it _been_?

_How did I miss this?!_

The.

Lack.

Of.

Love.

 _STOP_.

Her hands lifted, fingers slowly sliding into her hair, insides pulling and twisting; eyes still unblinking, thoughts drifting in, as if through a fog.

There was always another way. Always. But he hadn’t looked for one.

Their friendship was a sham. One-sided. She was alone in it.

How unknowingly pathetic had she looked all this time? Trying to help him, trying to get through to him; and with each brush off, he hadn’t been keeping her at arms length. He’d just been telling her to go away. To leave him alone, because he’d _chosen_. And she hadn’t noticed because she thought they’d been friends and that he’d just been… _Oliver_. The mistaken, misunderstood lone warrior.

How could he let it happen?

_“But I don’t need it, Okay? Just concentrate on your own life.”_

_So I don’t have to wonder if you’re alright._

How could he?

He said it like it was a once and done afterthought, as if he’d done her a favour. Done them _both_ a favour. That he wasn’t just telling her to mind her own business so that he wouldn’t have to look into hers. _Her_ life. And give a damn.

Destroy to protect. What a lie.

His weird, toxic clusterfuck with Laurel had continued until just last year. His cycle with Sara. His dark connection to renegade Helena. The disgusting give and take with Susan. His dirty little secret with Elise. _All_ of it.

The difference was that, unlike with every other woman, he hadn’t had to sleep with Felicity first. Unlike with every other woman, the distance from her had been easier for him because he hadn’t gone to bed with her, which was a theme for him. Unlike with all other women, he’d only been friends with Felicity. And she was the help, first and foremost. Unlike the _rest_ , he could live without her. He’d never gone back. Never needed to.

And because he didn’t know her at all, because he didn’t care enough to find out, he hadn’t seen that it was slowly destroying her.

_“Do you think I’ve wasted my time here?” She asked in a rush of air because she was already losing him, wasn’t she? “Do you think it’s all been one giant waste?”_

_His eyes flickered shut._

The pain was a crescendo, to exquisite strengths. Until she was gasping. Until, eyes still wide open, tears gathered and fell. One. By. One.

He thought she’d wasted her time with him.

The whole point with her staying on with the team after they found Walter, was for Oliver. Her and John’s secret mission to save a man unwilling to fight for his own happiness, well, in a way he had. He fought for the kind of life where friendship wasn’t an option for him. She’d failed.

And now he thought he should never have brought her on in the first place.

He regretted it. Regretted _her_. In his life.

Lips pressing together, a sound - something quiet and trembling - broke through. _Oh God_. It was getting hard to breathe. _I’m going to be sick_.

Oliver didn’t care about her.

Oliver didn’t care about himself.

She was out of the basement before he returned; the world around her tunnelling as she went.

She left him behind.

She left all of it behind.

It was a Sunday, slow day ordinarily. So her absence wasn’t noted as suspicious. And she’d gotten out of the habit of having someone who she had to tell what she was doing and where she was going. So the fact that he didn’t call her, or try to contact her in any way, wasn’t surprising. He rarely called her for anything that wasn’t mission related anyway. To him, there was nothing wrong. Nothing had changed. _His_ world hadn’t dissolved of colour.

He hadn’t spent a sleepless night trying to understand how she hadn’t she seen it. It wasn’t even about him being an outstanding actor, not when it didn’t seem to cost him a thing.

 _I’m still stunned. I don’t know what to think_ , because maybe she didn’t know him as well as she’d always thought.

And she’d considered of calling John, thought of asking him if he’d known. If he’d seen. If he knew of anything that could-

 _Could what?_ She slammed her desk drawer closed. _Fix this? “_ Make Oliver want to be my friend?” She muttered and it sounded just as mortifying as she thought it would.

No, she hadn’t slept. Completely lost, she’d tortured herself by going through every memory of him she had; trying to pinpoint the how’s and the where’s of when he’d made his decision. What had triggered it? Was it something she’d done? Something she _hadn’t_ done? Was it a moment that she wasn’t privy to, _what?_ Why hadn’t she known?

Why hadn’t she been good enough not to let go of?

A possible and completely unwanted answer to that, walked right through the elevator doors on the 41st floor of Queen Consolidated. An answer with a name.

“Susan?” Felicity blinked at the approaching figure and really, _this is just what I need_. On top of everything.

“Morning.” The woman had an odd tilt to her lips when she smiled, as if she always knew something you didn’t and you couldn’t quite tell if it was genuine or not. _Or maybe she just smiles that way at me_. The women Oliver slept with? Most disliked her on the simple fact that she worked closely with the object of their affections, however much he may display a complete lack of interest in her. Or maybe she’d stepped on Susan’s foot in a past life, giving her a limp. The image was a nice one, if transient.

“Good morning” After several seconds of just standing there, holding papers behind her desk, Felicity tired to smile. “Can I help you with something?”

 _And then you, you know, move along._ Away.

Because Susan was _looking_ at her. Assessing. Again.

“Help me? No.” The reporter shook her head, like, _you? Help me?_ “Just thought I’d let you in on a little secret, you know,” she gestured between them like they always did this, exchange gossip with their coffee, “between us girls.”

 _Oh, I_ don’t _think so._

“What?” It just came out; bluntly because, _I’d rather die? Not even kidding, I would rather-_

Stepping closer, looking oddly furtive yet happy, _please no_ , Susan lowered her voice and said. “Oliver just told me: he’s stepped in as a candidate for the Mayor of Star City.”

If there were any other words in the English language that could make Felicity hurt like that - like giant hands had gripped her spine, only to make it crack in small fractures - they’d, strangely, be those.

“He… did?”

_“I kill people.” But sounded small. “I bring criminals to justice, to jail, but there’s always more. It never ends. In the grand scheme of things, what do I actually accomplish for Star City?”_

What had changed?

Not hearing her pause of her internal agony, Susan’s hand gripped around the shoulder handle of her bag. “I spoke to him about it again last week; you know he’s done so much for this city…” she sighed, shaking her head as if she were saying that Felicity had no idea and _oh_ , the stories she could tell her.

In that brief moment, the pen in Felicity’s hand felt a weapon.

“It’s stunning, come to think of it. The man he used to be, compared to the man he is now? That angle can be used to endorse one hell of a candidacy.” And really, what did this woman know about either versions of Oliver that she _hadn’t_ pulled together through illicit means? “Anyway, I reminded him of the good he could _still_ do and, maybe something sunk in because my boss just gave me the story.” She finished, embellishing with a little shake of her man-bag where Felicity guessed a touch-screen lay innocently within and the look of a self-satisfied woman.

And she should be because once again the universe just proved how superfluous Felicity Smoak really was in Oliver Queen’s life. Or in her own.

 _I give him advice, he ignores it_. Susan butters him up and he’s a candidate for _mayor_. The difference was ridiculous.

Except now she knew why there even was one.

And the USS Susan leaves quite a wake. “That’s incredible.” Really, you get a gold star.

She could barely get out the words; managing though, to offer Susan an _I’m happy for you_ smile.

The woman dared shrug her shoulder, as if it were an everyday occurrence. “Not really. Oliver’s always had it in him, I think.” Stomach clenching - hot claws digging deep - Felicity watched the reporter lean closer, her expression conspiratorial. “Just took the right person to see it.”

Envisioning herself shoving the pen in the woman’s eye wasn’t helping things either.  

Her mouth wanted to fall open.

Instead, the smile she’d pasted on, hurt. _Everything_ seemed to hurt now. “I’m glad.” And she was blinking a whole lot.

“Still, it must be a relief for you.”

“Uh, why?”

Susan frowned at her, her tone neutral. “Well, if Oliver gets into politics, he won’t need a secretary from QC. He’ll be given one with the requisite experience to handle the post.” It was a blatant reminder of Felicity’s _lack_ of experience in being an executive assistant.

It was also a swift punch in the gut.

“W-why would that make me relieved?” She floundered through the question, her smile slipping and sliding, _keep it together_.

“Oliver’s said more than once that he’s a horrible time keeper and that you’ve had to clean up after him before. Imagine getting out from under that? You could even apply for another job, one that _isn’t_ in the secretarial arts.” She finished with a pointed look in her direction like, _you know I’m right,_ before turning towards Oliver’s office.

Again, another reminder that Susan didn’t appreciate - just as Laurel hadn’t - that a woman five years younger that Oliver, who wore colourful dresses and skirts on a daily basis instead of the suits HR had _advised_ her (in an effort for propriety) to acquire and who didn’t have the essential experience, had been chosen - without any explanation beyond _because I said so_ \- to be Oliver’s council and left hand.

And really, maybe that was why what happened next… _happened_.

“Why does it always come back to that?” Squinting slightly, brow just a tad bothered, Felicity watched Susan pause and look back over her shoulder.

“Sorry?” She seemed puzzled, a polite smile on her face.

_Yep, well; I never do this, so I understand the cognitive dissonance you must be felling._

“Me being Oliver’s executive assistant.” Felicity pointed to herself and, _look at that! We’re talking about me. The one who’s been right here since the beginning_. “And it _is_ EA,” Felicity reminded _her_ for once, not in the hopes that she’d finally stop being a bitch but just to show her the level of petty Susan succumbed to all the time, “which is an altogether higher level of administrative officer than _secretary_. I basically carry over duties from the vice president of the company,” because he was a pretentious ass kisser. “And yet you insist, every _single_ chance you get,” and she spoke slowly, clearly _just in case_ Susan wasn’t 100% certain about Felicity’s meaning, “on pulling up from the **ether** my so-called lack of credentials. I’m guessing that’s why you think calling me a secretary is some sort of insult?” She asked, suddenly intolerant to the bullshit in the air and watched with only a small amount of satisfaction, when the woman blinked once, twice; her smile faltering.

But it took only moments for Susan to ‘suit up’. _God_ , it reminded her so much of Laurel and suddenly it all made sense. _Oliver, you-_ “I’m- I just think that Oliver should have had someone with more-”

“Do you understand how much I’ve actually helped him in the last 4 years? Can you honestly look back at our work history and tell me I could have done a better job?”

 _Give it your best shot_ , because there wasn’t a man or woman alive who could have done more. Credentials, CV’s - they didn’t show the sum of a person; just a few of their parts.

And yes, her expression was candidly pointed, her head titled a fraction, her eyes _dead_ serious behind her glasses and she _was_ serious.

This was her life. And Susan kept undermining it, inferring it as a mistake.

Much like Oliver had done the day before.

And yet, though obviously taken aback, Susan still managed to pull _this_ out of her back pocket. “Maybe I find it strange that a woman as young as you, spends most of her time, here.”

“And how old do I need to be, to do this job, Miss Williams?” Yeah, she’d never called her Susan before and she wasn’t starting now.

“I think it’s more a case of being in love with your boss, Miss Smoak.”

It hit her exactly where it was aimed: square in the chest, the _throat_. For a moment, words were impossible.

“You’re young. It’s not too late to let him go.”

As if she knew everything about her with a glance. As if she was a child. A teenager, in love with a taken man. No one had ever been so callous as to just-

No. Moira had. But Oliver was her son and Moira, at the time, a lioness in danger of losing him.

Susan gave Felicity such a discerning look - one that screamed _I am the mature one here, the one with experience -_ it was obviously meant to let Felicity know that it was for her own good that she’d had to smack the emotional shit out of her like this. Like, _wake_ _up honey. Time to stop dreaming._ “And I’m afraid there’s nothing _so-called_ about your lack of experience, Miss Smoak.”

Another person who thought they were doing Felicity a favour by slicing her open and getting a good look at the destruction inside. _Here, take my beating heart: I’m not using it_.

And really, maybe that was why she felt that new fissure within her, rupture energy of a different sort as Susan moved towards Oliver’s office. She was done with this woman and for the life of her, she didn’t understand why she hadn’t been before now. The woman thought she’d won something. That there was something _to_ win. That she’d made a point. It was a very cat scratch type-feeling.

The one where bitch was highlighted on the label.

“176.” Felicity exhaled; speaking just loud enough for Susan, who’s hand was on the door handle, to hear.

To turn back. “Excuse me?”

“It’s my IQ.” She offered without thinking a thing. “176. It’s…” her hands clapped together, “basically, I’m smarter than Albert Einstein.” _Who’d have thought, right?_

There was this slither of understanding in Susan’s face: the slow to come realisation that something was happening that might not be in her favour.

But, mostly? She looked like she’d been shot out of a canon.

“I could have gotten a job anywhere.” Spreading her hands, wanting to rub at the tiredness out of her eyes but not wanting to display another weakness in front of a woman who stored them up so that she could use them at just the right moment. “A double degree and a Masters from MIT? _Please_ , I could have been CEO.”

She let that sink in.

And Susan, to her benefit, didn’t try to hide her shock. Her… _disturbia_. The realisation that she might have been wrong to open her mouth and throw assumptions at a woman who’d basically given up her dreams for a man who could never give her them back. That maybe showing her disrespect when she could have been the better woman, instead of believing the presumptions of people who’d never spoken a word to Felicity, _might_ counter the image she’d made of herself in Oliver’s eyes and that’s really what it was all about. Oliver.

“I gave up _any_ chance of rising in a company I’ve spent years serving, knowing that most people would believe I got this job on my knees. And they did. They _do_.” She gestured to Susan before interlinking her fingers. Hands resting against her thighs as she leant on her desk. “But really, I’m overqualified. _Extremely_ overqualified.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

Susan was staring at her now; genuinely unnerved. It wasn’t the reaction Felicity had hoped to evoke, not by a long shot. This wasn’t about fear of a reprisal; all Felicity had wanted, was for Susan to be fair. And she hadn’t been. She needed to understand that. Instead, she’d managed to make the woman wary of her. Evil thinkers, evil doers.

It didn’t matter.

“I did it for Oliver.” Felicity admitted, quietly. Honestly. And _that_ was what mattered. “For his legacy. So that something of his parents could live on. So that he could have something, look at it and think ‘I did that’.” To not fail at one thing. “I did it because I’m his friend, even though he knew I _hated_ the idea of working for him this way.”

The furrow at Susan’s brow threatened to overtake her face. “You hated-”

“Yep.” Popping the ‘P’. “But he needed help. So, I made a sacrifice and believe me, Miss Williams. It _was_ a sacrifice. Never mind the work, the fact that I couldn’t work up through the ranks or apply for R &D- the amount of rude, chauvinistic, _disparaging_ remarks I received-”

“It wasn’t my intention to-”

“Yes, it was.” _Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn_. “You were letting me know my place in Oliver’s life, but don’t worry.” She added in a whisper that was just as facetious and cruel and false as Susan’s so-called conspiratorially happy one had been earlier. “I knew what that was a long time ago. You have nothing to worry about.”

And even Susan Williams could look chastised. Could glance to the floor. Could look incredibly uncomfortable as she stood there and suddenly, her expensive suit, _tight_ calf length skirt and extremely white shirt, weren’t so flattering anymore. A woman who tried too hard to impress a guy who wouldn’t admit in public, that they were dating.

 _Go away._ “I was just…” Felicity sighed, “hoping that you weren’t _that_ kind of woman.” The kind that was easily threatened. The kind that knew that they didn’t fully _have_ their man. “I mean, I know you’ve looked into Oliver.”

Susan’s head shot up.

The perceptive turn to Felicity’s lips, made Susan’s face pale. “Come on.” She whispered. “Of course you did. You’re a reporter. In fact, you’re so dedicated to work that you’re _still_ investigating him. While you sleep with him. While he trusts you,” with whatever titbits he’d shared that Felicity knew now, were words she’d never hear, “while you smile and pretend you’re not having him followed.”

With each addition, Susan seemed to grow increasingly tense. As if she needed a breath, her mouth opened in a shaky attempt at collecting calm from the atmosphere.

Of course, Oliver had known he was being tailed. They were so easy for him to escape, that he hadn’t cared about it.

“So!” And with more peppiness than she possessed at this moment, feeling zero joy at Susan’s flinch, Felicity bounced up off her desk and moved around it to sit. “I’d appreciate it if you’d stop with your blatant attempts at making me feel as small and insignificant as you always wished that I was.” She smiled up at the woman who seemed rooted to the floor: there was nothing in it for it to last more than a moment. “Ok?”

Minutes later, after Felicity had gotten back to work - after Susan had finally found it in her to move - and after receiving no reply because sometimes, there was just nothing a person could say to make what they’ve said better, the tell-tale _ding_ of the elevator rang clear through their private lobby.

And then there he was.

“Susan Williams is in your office.” Felicity muttered at him, without her usual ‘happy to work with my dear friend Oliver’ grace and it wasn’t even on purpose.

She couldn’t look at him.

“Thanks.” He was distracted; out of her peripheral she could just see him frown at the open file in his arms.

So, he didn’t notice.

Then again, he knew she didn’t like Susan. No one liked Susan. _Did_ he _even like Susan?_ The woman’s introduction into Oliver’s life wasn’t the kind you bragged about.

The door to his office opened and she heard his voice, “Hey,” and _oh_ , the ache.

_Hey._

_It’s nothing._

To him.

“Oliver, I need to-”

The door closing cut off Susan’s voice for which Felicity was thankful.

She didn’t want to hear anything else. In fact, she didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be blind drunk- no, she wanted to vent. To release some of the sadness as physical violence on a training dummy instead of the wetness on her cheeks. She couldn’t even find humour in the daily scan report that popped up in her inbox a few minutes later.

 _It’s not like he’d care if I left early_. She looked at her watch and winced. _Not that early_ …

“Ah, Felicity?”

Without thinking, she up and _again_ , he was there. Beautiful. Perfect. Tired.

For a single second, she disliked him immensely. “What?”

Unblinking, his expression flickered.

She just waited, reiterating. “What?”

Then she registered that he’d been wearing a puzzled look before she’d responded and was now… not wearing any look at all.

He shifted. “Everything alright out here?” Did his voice have to rumble like that? Low and husky and patient.

Patient. _When was the last time he’d been-_

And how many times was she going to ask herself that question, for however many different reasons?

She sent him a half salute. “Copacetic, Captain.”

It wasn’t meant to sound sarcastic and to her credit, it didn’t. But there was no way she was calling him Oliver - hearing her voice curve around the L and R of his name whilst she felt so raw.

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve got work to do here, so…”

He cleared his throat but ended up losing any ounce of humanity in his expression and she almost threw her shoe at him. _That’s fine. Go choose that quarter life Oliver; I hope it tastes good._ “Can you come in here for a second?”

 _No_. “Sure.” Her job, her job; this was her _job_. She did her job well. _I can continue doing it_.

Until, of course, she walked into the office and remembered that Susan was in fact, sitting in the spare seat across the desk.

She almost walked back out.

Instead, _I’m too good for my own good_ , she looked at Oliver and waited; hating the heat of humiliation rising within her.

_“I don’t want it Felicity.”_

Shake it off.

“So,” hands in his pockets, a frown on his otherwise emotionless face, Oliver looked from one woman to the next, “Susan would like to have lunch with you.”

If he’d told her she was to take a swan dive into a volcano, it would have made more sense.

He’d asked it as a question, as if he didn’t get it himself. As if he was asking _her_ to make some sense out of the senseless. He knew better, knew that Felicity didn’t like her, nor had Susan ever shown an inclination towards wanting to befriend Felicity in turn so… yep.  This was strange to him.

_Good, because I’d rather die the death of a 1000 knives._

But also because she was polite, Felicity just blinked, arched her brows and said. “Beg pardon?”

“Lunch Felicity.” Standing, Susan took a deep breath. Took one large step for horrible woman everywhere and if she pushed too far too fast, Felicity would have to break out that move Diggle taught to her a couple of months ago. _We’ll call it a Hershey’s kiss, when really it-_ “I’d like to have lunch with you.” Her smile was fractured,  a reminder of the way Felicity had dressed her down earlier. “Oliver’s busy and-”

“I know he’s busy.” _I do his schedule for him_. And she wasn’t even being competitive: if you had to fight over a guy with another woman, then you didn’t have the guy. No, Felicity was tongue tied and trying to find a way out. “And so am I. Susan.” She added. Hard.

“Felicity.” Oliver. He was… frowning. Well, she wasn’t usually so firm. _I’m stunned he noticed_. Then again, Susan was involved. He’d have been the same with Laurel. _Pick a woman who isn’t me and you’ll get somewhere_. “I can go to the next meeting by myself.” _Wait, what was he doing?_ “I’ll need you this afternoon, but-”

_“And, ah… thank you for trying to help me. But I don’t need it, Okay?”_

“-I can manage just fine for an hour.” Gaging her, which was an odd thing for him to do now, he added. “ _If_ you want to go that is.”

She said everything she needed to say with her eyes, which made him look down. _Oh no you don’t_. “Not rea-”

“I think you could use some fresh air,” Susan cut in and any second now, the pen in Felicity’s hand was going straight into Susan’s- “and I want to ask you a few things.”

She felt her teeth clench. “I don’t want to be interrogated during my lunch hour. Find another willing victim.” She smiled: all grit and metal. “You won’t have to look far.” She gestured behind her, lips closing over her teeth before they could be seen grinding. “He’s standing right there.”

And the way his eyes moved right to her - the way his frown lessened into more a statement of his surprise - his head moving with them, made Felicity wonder just how subservient she’d been the last few years to make being so wilful with a woman they both knew she didn’t like, such a shock. Just how voiceless.

And she’d done that to herself.

And of course, sensing that her prey was distracted, Susan took a chance. “I promise,” the woman sent a quick glance Oliver’s way and it appeared confused, maybe at his lack of interjection on her part - he was literally standing there, giving Felicity the ‘what’s going on with you’ look  - and pressed on, “you’ll like the food” _ashes in my mouth, sure_ , “and you might find what I have to say interesting.” _I highly doubt that_. “Ok.” _Not ok, no._ “Meet you outside in ten minutes?”

_I’m not going-_

And without waiting for an actual answer beyond the ‘are you on drugs’ expression screaming in Felicity’s eyes - the fantastic fish impersonation she was carrying - Susan gathered up her bag, Felicity a look - a, _please don’t tell Oliver a thing about before_ \- before walking out of the office once more, looking briefly over her shoulder at her friend with all the benefits. “I’ll see you tonight Oliver.”

 _For drinks and sex, of course_. Susan had another story. She needed her muse.

Pulled away from whatever was making him stare at his _secretary_ , Oliver cleared his throat. “Yeah.” Sounding oh _so_ excited and smiling back as she left.

The moment she was out of sight, he let out a breath; still stood by the corner of the room. “That was…” he searched for the right word, “odd.” Before walking towards the cabinet behind his desk. “You don’t have to go, you know.” He said back to Felicity, quieter than before, because it was just them.

And it was probably the most care he’d shown her in weeks. Months.

It stopped, made her want to forget about yesterday and pretend it never happened. “I am… aware.” But it did. And Susan had somehow managed to score a lunch for whatever reason she needed. _Probably wants me to pretty please, not spill about her after hours activities_. Not that Oliver would even want to hear it but, since when had Felicity kept secrets from him?

She opened her mouth to begin, _Oliver; the woman you keep having_ drinks _with knows all about your secret and she’s literally waiting with baited breath to expose you to the world,_ taking a tentative step closer-

“Actually,” he muttered, distracted once more as read something in the drawer he was holding open, “there’s something I want to discuss with you.”

The drawer closed - when he pushed it too with one finger - with a click. One _long_ , dextrous finger.

She loved his hands. Loved the way he’d worked them for enough years to develop a particular kind of roughness underneath. Loved the tell-tale scarring from a burn on his left and the long-healed knife wound on his right. Loved how he could be gentle with hands that had killed.

Hated that she loved it.

She breathed it out. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” He licked his lips, the _yeah_ sounding very heavy as he pulled out his chair by the back, “It’s about my candidacy for Mayor.”

“Yeah, that was… surprising.” They were hesitant, her words. Not wanting to spark another well-kept factoid about him that could hurt her. “From what I recall, you were _vehemently_ opposed to the idea.” Shoe scuffing the floor, she watched Oliver debate with himself as he stood there. “What changed your mind?”

But he shook his head. “It’s not important.” Shutting her out once more before patting his tie to his chest before sitting down. “But planning a campaign is going to be lot of work.”

“It’s definitely not a walk in the park.” Her tone dry because, obviously. “Prepare to pucker up.”

Only Oliver Queen could pull off inquisitive and thrown off target, in one ridiculously attractive broken brow line. “What?”

Her usual reaction to the squinty eyes and the way they flickered to and fro when he was at his most befuddled was to smile, but… she didn’t feel it. “Kissing babies. Kissing _ass_.” His expression cleared, her point made. “Be prepared to make deals with unscrupulous peoples.”

Though he’d know better than anyone how that was sometimes necessary. Which meant he also knew how to circumvent unethical action, how to read between lines.

“You already sound so sure I’ll make it.” The words were spoken on the end of a breath and she felt the last of what was keeping her a cool customer deflate.

“I think you’re capable of whatever you strive to be.” Her _I believe in you_ feeling like a slap in the face because she still did. “But you don’t need to hear that.” It was a last second addition, not wanting to hear his _you don’t have to do that anymore_ crap-

Except, when something spluttered out of existence in his eyes, it made her see that he’d wanted to hear them. The words. The _I believe in you_. Even if it meant rejecting them later, he wanted her to say them.

And it made her pause because… _that isn’t fair_.

“No. I don’t.” Breathing down through his nose, head facing his notes, he grabbed a pen… started writing. His face a concentrated scowl of effort. His eyes-

Defeated.

 _What the hell is wrong with you?_ She wanted to bellow the words at him.

He couldn’t do this, be mayor and be so self-hating. So tired. So angry. All. The. Time. _Tell me you don’t need me. Tell me you’re doing fine, Oliver. Tell me._ He didn’t.

Instead, he signed his signature on something official-looking. “I’ll need a representative.”

 _Ah_. “Well, I could-”

“I’ll be taking in resumes this week but, Felicity?” He glanced up at her, and here he paused… like he had to breathe. Prepare. It lasted long enough that her empty stomach started to clench. “I want you to stay here.”

“Here?” Blinking, her eyes shot around his office in explanation.

“No, I mean,” and he rubbed his lips together; looking like whatever he was trying to say was… difficult. Uncomfortable. “With the company. If I get somewhere with this,” his fingers splayed over the letters on his desk, all stamped with a very official looking emblem, “then I’ll be leaving Queen Consolidated in your,” the word broke midway, “capable hands.”

_Excuse me?_

She felt like her breath was being held of its own accord. “Explain that sentence.”

Shifting in his seat, he leaned back a little until his hands rested together on the desk. “If I make any headway, if I even manage to… I want you to stay at QC.”

“Oliver, I’m your EA.” It was ridiculous and her nose crinkled at the notion. “Your Girl Friday; of course I’m coming with you.”

“I don’t _need_ a Girl Friday in this.” He told her and… he was serious about it. She could tell. He could barely look her in the eye, but his tone was certain. He’d decided. “And I think it’s time to let you go.”

To let you go.

Let you go.

Go.

_I think it’s time to-_

“There are several places in the company,” he continued, as if he hadn’t just torn her to pieces, as if she wasn’t standing there, internally begging him to stop pulling apart the threads that made her who she was- he couldn’t know he as doing it, “positions I think are far more worthy of your talents…”

And he continued to talk - all to his desk, his hands, the papers he was moving around into piles - and his voice wasn’t weak. It was quiet, but it wasn’t weak. Wasn’t false. Wasn’t a lie.

He’d thought about this. Thought about letting her go.

Her work at QC, with him, was tied to their work in the bunker. One without the other felt wrong. Imagining her days without him felt like a bullet to the stomach.

_Why is he doing this to me?_

And maybe if she wasn’t so hurt, if she could hear more than just her pulse pounding in her skull, feel the heat of her blood race beneath her skin, feel her stomach _twist_ so tightly it made her want to curl around a toilet, she might have seen more… in his body, his face. His voice.

The way his fingertips trembled on the desk.

As it was, hearing him list off her skills and attributes, like he was a computer ticking off the points on her profile - regardless of how he’d memorised everything he knew about her or the way he wrapped pride around each and every one, like a mental hug, which was the most she’d ever get off him - wasn’t something she could bare just then.

 _Like I’m a prize cow_ , and not his friend. His partner. His family. His comrade.

Disposable.

It seemed foolish now.

That she thought she could ignore it, what he’d said. Let it go. Thought she could just leave it be. Never mention it. Pretend it didn’t exist. That she didn’t care.

Because it might sort itself out. He might want to...

She’d hoped that he’d _want_ to rectify it.

But as she watched him shift the sheets of paper on his desk for the umpteenth time and point to various markers on them - and she hadn’t realised until now that they were all jobs within the business - and as he talked and talked and _talked_ with the same voice that made her feel safe, the one she secretly heard at night because she was alone and he made her feel less so… until now.

Until he’d unknowingly just broken her.

And that was it, right there. _Finally_.

“You’d have your pick.” He was smiling but his eyes looked dead. It no longer shocked her. “I’ve already sent out emails; they’re just waiting for your call.” It was a smile so gentle that, if his eyes weren’t still without soul, she’d think he was being genuine in his effort to make it all about her. “I think it’s for the best. Your talents have been squandered here long enough.”

Squandered.

As if… as if she’d been doing _nothing_. For years. As if they hadn’t achieved wonders in _just_ 4 years. As if they hadn’t saved the city. Saved lives. As if they hadn’t helped the Glades recuperate. As if they didn’t change the world one tiny stone overthrown at a time.

_Another waste of time for him, right?_

It took several moments just for her to be able to breathe without falling over, which was funny to her really; in a distant sense. She was trying not to fall over because _it_ was all over. Her life. Her purpose. Oliver was basically asking her to find a new one.

Without him.

No more heartbreak when the heart was heartbroken. _Splat_. Feed it to dogs, they’d get more out of it.

Echoes of _pretend_. That’s what it had all been really, hadn’t it? Pretend. On her part. For years, that everything had been fine and would, one day… be _better_ than fine. He’d been the honest one. The _real_.

What hurt more, that he’d done this… or that she’d seen more than what was there?

“Felicity?”

The lines to the office were a blur she had to blink away, before focusing. Before settling on _him_.

Their eyes connected, 1 second. 5 seconds. 10-

He looked down to his perfunctory desk lamp, gaze moving over the metallic bumps. Clearly, it as fascinating.

_Look at me._

Silence.

There was something neither had ever been able to hide. They could fluently read the moments of quiet, the looks between them, without uttering a word. He seemed… restless. Clearly searching for something else to debate, but he failed. And as if gravity was the opposing force, his eyes lifted back up with the kind of heaviness that told her he’d struggled _not_ to look at her. Which was odd.

All the while, her own had been drinking him in.

Tracing features she’d long since memorised, re-familiarising herself with the slopes and plains of his face she’d wonder at the feel of. The texture. The warmth. The way his mouth - though Oliver was characteristically the type to smother emotion that hurt him - still managed to look utterly soft and kissable, even when his eyes were dead. The way the fingers of one hand - always that hand -fidgeted as the other lay still. The way intense emotion, even when repressed, influenced the tilt of his brow, the granite line of his jaw… the way his mouth was ever so slightly open as he took her in.

The way he seemed naturally inclined towards hardness. Coldness. When everything about him inside was marshmallow soft.

What _seemed_ true, was rarely real. And he’d wanted real once. Yet he was living, had _chosen_ to live, in a lie.

The kind of man that would deliberately go against the grain because, mentally, he was fucked three ways to Sunday. And she’d believed he’d just… sort himself out. A compliment here, a reaffirmation of her belief there and, what? He’d find some magical way to heal?

No, he’d just toss his partner aside and stop caring. And think it was fine.

Now everything was just pooling: adding to the pit. Self-disgust at her own wan conceit. Disappointment. Anger. Fear.

The world looked… grey.

“Did you know that mum was sick recently?” It just came out. And she didn’t know where it came from. Or why she started with it.

But they’d been looking at each other when she did, so she caught the way he stilled.

Completely.

“…No.” Honest emotion took away any firmness in what might have been seen as a coarse whisper but was more surprise than anything else. “I didn’t.”

 _There he is_. There was Oliver, underneath the nothing.

“ _Really_ sick.” She paused again, because she had to. Because the wad at the back of her throat wouldn’t let her do otherwise. It was too close to home, made all the more overwhelming because- “The kind where you worry. A lot.” Alone.

He. Was. Still. As. Stone.

But he was looking at her. Waiting. He hadn’t done that in a while.

“She’s alright now.” She made sure he knew, but he didn’t loosen up. Didn’t blink. “Dig helped a bit.”

The whole of him jerked, hard enough to make the only loose pen on his desk, roll.

Dig helped her because he’d cared.

“I told him not to tell you because I thought you had enough on your plate.” With Roy. Laurel. Thea. She took a moment to stare into his eyes before following through. “But I thought you’d notice that I wasn’t sleeping. That you’d _ask_.”

Looking back, why hadn’t she picked up on that? Rose coloured glasses weren’t something she’d ever worn for any reason. She’d always seen Oliver for the man he is: deeply flawed. Beautiful. Brave. Sad. A million other things…

Maybe he felt that too; the world inside her, dropping from its place and going _down_. The face of reality.

And there was something she’d only ever see Oliver do. His heart could break - someone could break his arm, someone he loved could tell him he was worthless, the city could burn - and if he wanted, he could hide it so well, he wouldn’t even twitch. Wouldn’t say a word.

But his eyes always gave him away. As if they were holding back the weight of an ocean.

She could see the _white_ of them emboldening the blue. The black.

She sucked in air, because everything in her was cracked and fragile; threatening to shatter. “What you said yesterday?” She sounded like one puff of wind would make her blow away. One word from him. “I didn’t know.” She felt that ring true at least, with everything it meant; all the words and meanings and injustices. “I didn’t know that you weren’t my friend.” It ended in a whisper.

She sounded like she was five years old and the next-door neighbour’s son had told her she couldn’t play with him because she was a stupid little girl.

Except, Oliver was starting to look like the burning man.

Invisible flames licking at his ankles, an unimaginable _something_ in his eyes. The fire behind his mask of blankness, though it wasn’t really emptiness: it was the kind of blank inspired by deep levels of emotion, searing away expressions that couldn’t hope to do it justice.

But what did _she_ know?

“All this time, I thought you were being… you.” Then she smiled - a watery, pathetic thing - because saying this felt good, letting him know. Saying it made her realise the _price_. And it wasn’t good at all.

When he watched it appear, the muscles in his neck _twisted_ , tightening. Hand clamped to the table. Breath held. A statue of a man.

“I thought you were afraid. I thought you were sad.” He’d lost a lot. “And I’ve been waiting for you… for you to come back to me.” Might as well get out _all_ the suck while he was listening, and he was. So intently, his brow looked etched in, like a permanent mark. A scar. His eyes - sharp - pierced her: royal blue exploding into millions of stars. “Like an idiot.”

That was making everything worse; the mortification of being so very wrong.

The fire crawled up his legs.

“I was so _sure_ you’d need someone. That you might need _me_ the way I needed you, even though you never…” Even though he never came to her. Even though he wasn’t really there. “I thought, one day, you’d want to talk to me again. Like you used to.” _I miss you so much_. It rippled down through his face, like he’d heard, and then his fingers were curling. His throat working. “To try, like you once did, when you told me I was your partner.” When it all made sense. When they’d been in sync.

And why wasn’t he saying anything?

Just letting her speak, looking like _that_.

He felt _bad_ for her, didn’t he? He regretted it all, had to. That was it. That was why he was letting her go on. He was a gentleman. _Turns out I don’t know you at all._

Except, she really did, and he was just… cruel.

“I didn’t see what you’d decided to do.” She sniffed up, blinking away the moisture. Looking him dead in the eye. “Or that you’d think I’ve wasted years of my life.”

As if life had been forced down his gullet once more, this noise - something that sound liked shards of glass being swallowed - cracked through his quiet. “No-”

“-But that’s ok. I get to go have lunch with your sex buddy.”

He flinched, looking like he couldn’t move for breath but otherwise, the starkness to his expression didn’t change. “ _Felicity_ -”

“Why do you care?” She asked, watching him just stare at her. “I’m just the woman who keeps you alive at night.” And it made her remember her deepest insecurities that first year after she’d joined the team, about the fragility of their alliance and the hope that it would keep going. “Nobody, really. I mean, anybody could do that right? Check your resumes,” she gestured to the papers, “I’m sure my replacement’s in there somewhere.” And with that, she turned on her heel, leaving the office.

Seeing red.

Walking through grey.


	2. Hold On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's up! It was supposed to be here Friday but I had to go to some appointments: sorry guys. But here it is *sweats* really hope you like it.  
> Tell me what you think, kay?

 

_He’d decided to tell her._

_It was taking a chance. The kind that surpassed all others, because it could ruin everything. For the first time - somehow - he’d found the courage to act, not on impulse. On truth. He wanted to stretch out his hands, his fingers, and seize a moment. Touch the light. Bask._ Give _._

_Love._

_Despite the fear, he wanted to be honest._

_He’d been_ so _close._

_“So, kid.” No matter how many times he’d hear that voice, Oliver would always be thrown back to that first time. To the abandoned airplane on an island nobody knew existed. To the man with a sword aimed at his throat. “What will you do now?”_

_Pictures. Photographs. Video recordings._

_Her face was in every single one._

_“I think,” pointing a remote towards the monitor, one sun kissed finger pressed play on the frozen content that Oliver’s eyes had been glued to since he’d stepped up to the table, “this will by my favourite.”_

_Footage of her as she slept._

_A sight he’d revisit in every nightmare for the next 3 years._

_There was a stranger - a man - in her home, her bedroom, recording every step he took… and she hadn’t known._

_He hadn’t known._

_A hand touched her forehead in it; lifting a lock of her hair, as she lay unconscious. Asleep on her bed, as if she’d been too tired to even pull back the covers._

_Unaware. Innocent. Untouched._

_The voice on the video, the owner of the hand, whispered to his boss over the com, so as not to wake her. “Do you want me to take her now, Mr Wilson?”_

No _. “Please.” His stomach lurched. “Don’t.”_

_The video paused._

_“Please what?”_

_His lips were numb. “Please don’t hurt her.” Not her._

_“Why should I do as you ask?”_

_“Because I’m going to give you what you want.”_

_“And what is that?”_

_“Me.”_

_“…Then you have no idea what I want.”_

_“Tell me then.”_

_“I want you to choose.”_

_The choice didn’t matter; he knew the end result, he knew what it meant. The death of the dream._

_That beautiful reality. It was over before it began. The one he’d secretly, shamefully, housed for months. The ‘too good to be true’ life he’d always wanted but realised men like him, men who were monsters - who created monsters in kind - could never have. It felt good to dream._

_She wasn’t meant for this life. For_ his _world._

_But, he’d imagined. He’d hoped that maybe…_

_Hope was for the good._

_Now she’d never know._

_She’d never know how much he-_

It wasn’t new, the way he could hurt the ones who didn’t deserve it. He expected it now.

But this… not this. It wasn’t supposed to be her, to be **_this_**. He’d been _so_ sure.

And she’d left. _She’s gone_.

It wasn’t supposed to happen.

It had slipped through his fingers and like he was stood in a vacuum, life felt _devoid_ of it. Nothing made sense. Not her departure, not her words. Not the certainty. The _nothing_ left behind that he hadn’t expected to feel so strongly.

Grey.

**Go.**

He couldn’t move. Couldn’t adhere to the instinct demanding that he do so.

**Go. After. Her.**

Why? Wasn’t this what he’d wanted?

_I didn’t know she-_

His breaths were sporadic over a heart that pulsed reprimands, warnings, and shock. Pain. Regret. Punishment. _She-_

He’d done damage.

This was a waking nightmare. A new one. Not one he’d ever thought would come about, not by his own making and he sucked it in - the poison - and though he was alone, tried to speak. “Felici-”

Memory slammed into him and his eyes shut tight: her face, her voice, her righteousness. Her _hurt_. It made his eyes water, the truth in every word. The false perception he’d created that had slowly torn into her. Chipping away at her the same way it had him.

Like the worst kind of person, he hadn’t known.

_“I didn’t know that you weren’t my friend.”_

He hadn’t known words could eviscerate like this. He thought he knew. He didn’t. It brought it all back, what he’d locked away. Teeth clenched, bile rose fast up his throat and he retched, forcing him forwards. He didn’t know a lot of things.

_What have I done?_

His hands, braced, smudged sweat across the mocking _cleanliness_ of the pristine desk, the perfection he’d attained because of her. A sad replacement - succeeding in maintain a hold over his family’s business - for the warmth he’d rejected so strongly years ago. The warmth he’d ached for so much, he’d tried to-

A wordless sound wrenched free of him, pulled deep from his gullet.

If he’d known… would he have done anything different? The not knowing felt like liquid shame.

He wasn’t worthy. _Felicity_. Not of her name. Not of thinking about her, not of anything; _I never have been_. It had been so long since then, but he’d forgotten that years could go by and old hurts could remain. He _lived_ in them; he should know better. And he thought he couldn’t sink any lower.

He’d done wrong. He’d made the wrong choice.

_But, I’d tried- I thought…_

Wrong.

If the cost outweighed the goodness of the choice, the rightness, then what kind of choice was it? If it made you blind, deaf and dumb. If it only showed the extent of the damage after the fact, years after. If it deluded you.

After all, sometimes a lie is easier to live. But he was the only one who was supposed to live in it.

She’d been right there, with him. And, so wrapped up in being the only man, the one-man crusade in his darkness - in ego and hopelessness and nihilism - that he hadn’t seen it. Her.

He’d hurt her enough that she’d _told_ him he had. He knew her better than he’d allowed her to think he did. If the hurt was manageable, she’d have never said a word. He’d thought her… not indifferent. She felt more than most. Just that… he’d thought she didn’t need him. Didn’t think of him when she was upset. Didn’t wonder why they spent more time apart than together because, why would she? He’d been sure she wouldn’t.

And yet-

_“Did you know that mum was sick recently?”_

For all his _good_ intentions, what were they worth when they allowed him to miss that?

A sharp gasp left him; the scrape of his nails across the stained woodwork tearing into the perfection of his desk - splintering the tips and he didn’t feel it, didn’t care - but it made the world stop spinning for several seconds.

It was a betrayal. He’d betrayed her, betrayed their friendship. Their connection-

He missed that, what he’d deliberately repressed.

Coffee mornings and eye contact across a room for longer than the few seconds required. Touches, harmless movements that instilled the kind of peace he’d only been told about before. The smile that came so easily to him, the one that made everything feel simple.

The only thing left was the sound of her voice. And indulgence.

He’d destroyed it so thoroughly years ago.

He’d _tried_.

It wold be so easy to-

He hadn’t seen it. The lie of it. The way he’d not understood _her_. But he _felt_ it. _Now_ , he felt it. He got it. He’d taken it granted, but not in the way she thought. It didn’t make it any better.

It made it worse.

She didn’t know. _I didn’t tell her,_ and it was with self-disgust that he managed to straighten. An odd energy fuelling him, the need to lacerate himself open at the wrists, but facing her again could do that. Could make him bleed, till he was dry.

He wanted it.

_Kill me, Felicity._

He’d die smiling for her if she did. Not that she ever would. She was _good_.

He almost laughed at the masochist he’d become, as his empty stomach writhed at the knowing. As his fingers curled into and under the wood. As an ugly smile, devoid of goodness, spread across his jaw. As self-hate turned the world crimson.

This wasn’t something he could fix.

Not even with an explanation. The harm done, if it was anything along the lines his brain was stumbling down - because he knew, secretly, what she’d been telling him with her eyes and her voice - was the kind of fracture that couldn’t be taped over and given a sub-standard bandage. It would become a fissure. Unless she allowed him to fix it, gave him what he hadn’t earned.

 _Should_ he even fix it?

Wouldn’t it be better to let her go thinking he was the worst level of creature?

_“Check your resumes, I’m sure my replacement’s in there somewhere.”_

It shook him. He was _still_ shaken. But he was-

_I’m scared._

She’d meant it.

And that was all it took for him to see that, no. He couldn’t let her go like this. He couldn’t let her leave thinking that he thought she was replaceable, because _god_ , she wasn’t. On no level. And he’d let her question it. Let her believe otherwise because he hadn’t seen that-

He’d done too good a job convincing himself he’d be fine without her, that he’d made _her_ think the same.

The truth, the _real_ , was too pitiful to voice. _He_ was too pitiful. Maybe she _should_ leave him.

Maybe she should hurt him.

Tear him open, _take my heart; burn it, eat it, throw it to dogs_. It hadn’t been his in a long time. He wasn’t using it.

Near-choking on it, the crawling heat of his culpability - of his most heinous self, the fire he’d always carried - flared through him, scorching - burning him alive - and he couldn’t keep still.

He couldn’t breathe.

 _I hurt her_. He’d hurt her so much, it had taken everything she had not to cry. Not to scream. Not to show him.

 _Fuck_ -

A crash sounded from his office. Followed by another.

He got it now.

 

* * *

 

 

It was a wave.

Heightened anxiety.

Pulse rocketing.

Cold.

And-

A slow movement in _warmth_ too - and how did that make sense - that wasn’t pleasant, rising from her stomach to her face. _Infecting_ her. Infusing her with the multitudes of _things_ she’d buried. Desires left neglected. Rolling tides of sickening disappointment. Betrayal of a friendship she’d cultivated, a partnership that hadn’t existed, of the energy she’d wasted being the only one to try. Embarrassment boiling to newer, more uncomfortable levels. Frustration an itch she couldn’t scratch. Sheer unhappiness.

Void.

It had dropped down, deep; unofficial resignation to a fact. And-

 _Anger_.

The same invisible fire that had seemed to burn Oliver, surrounded her now, except she wasn’t the burning man; thrown onto a pyre of her own making. She _was_ the fire. And, also-

Tears, _which are not allowed to fall._ She was stronger than that. She didn’t need this; to feel this way. To feel less, when she was more. She’d blown her own trumpet all her life; she knew exactly what she was and who.

But every step made it worse. Every extra in distance between her and him. Every emotion, every single second of silence following, felt like an admittance from him and the piece of her that wanted him to call her back was louder than she could quell. The part of her that knew him, _knew_ he was lying and miserable and the architect of his own destruction.

It just left her feeling emptier, more depressed than the previous seconds. The moments following her words, her statement-

 _“I mean, anybody could do that right?”_ anybody could save his life and watch over him at night, she was no one; nothing. _“Check your resumes, I’m sure my replacement’s in there somewhere.”_

-Made her feel worse. Made her regret.

She didn’t want that. Didn’t want to resign, because she believed in her work which was more than she could say for a lot of people.

But… _Had_ she lied?

 _Could_ she leave everything?

The mission wasn’t just _his_ ; it was hers too. She’d given years of her life to it and it wasn’t just to save Oliver Queen. She’d thought they could build a brighter future. He’d forgotten that. _She_ hadn’t. She still had faith in the city.

And she hated that, even now, she still wanted to save him.

 _I’m an idiot._ Didn’t change a thing.

Sound felt muted: white noise in her ears, a distant roar that made no sense until she was out of the elevators. Eyes re-opening - not realising she’d closed them - and taking unsteady breaths as she walked-

_She sent him a half salute. “Copacetic, Captain.”_

It was fine. _I am fine._

Her pace picked up-

Then she was outside of the building, sucking in oxygen like it was heroine and she was the addict. The buzzing of hundreds of bees, the noise in her ears erupted in a rush before vanishing and she let out a haggard breath; as if she’d been running for her life. As if she’d been told something that destroyed her world, and maybe she had. Face turned up to the sky, her hands lifted to cup the back of her neck-

_There’d been no hesitance in him, but the carefulness in his fingertips was a reminder. The fine trembling in his touch a clear indication that, no: he never touched her like this. It was a very real moment and it would make a confused mess of Felicity Smoak. It had been too long since he’d last placed a hand to her shoulder and wasn’t that pathetic? That she remembered._

_Slowly, he’d pressed in. Searching. Warm. Standing right behind her._

“Felicity?”

_Oh, for fuck-_

Hateful.

Eyes slamming shut - _not the voice I wanted to hear right now,_ if ever: her fingers curling into fists, before her hands dropped to her sides - Felicity grit her teeth, correcting. “It’s Miss Smoak.” _Hateful woman_.

Even if she wasn’t the malevolent demon Isabel had been, Susan stuck around like a bad smell; inviting discord and… resentment. Revelation. Weakness. Her patience was hanging on by a thread right now, but Felicity could still recognise that half her dislike lay in the cracks of a foundation that had been 1000 more shaky than she’d known. Susan was a symbol of Oliver’s lie.

_Don’t care._

Not right now, no.

“Oh.” The voice faltered and really what had she been thinking Felicity’s reaction would be?  “Well, I-”

“Well,” and it came out like a choked laugh; like she was crying as she giggled when really, she just felt drained, “you thought wrong.”

Immature? Maybe. Less than effective? Most likely. Did it feel good? Damn right it did.

There was a pounding across her forehead, just over her eyes, which felt a little lighter with every verbal razorblade. But the irritation was tiring. Yet, well; Susan hadn’t earned the right to use her first name. Hadn’t earned her trust or her goodwill. She never would. Duplicity notwithstanding, Susan Williams was a woman who put herself first; always and forever.

And said-same woman was hovering somewhere in her peripheral.

 _Ugh, go away_. Far away. _Where the chance of even bumping into you is non-existent._

Maybe Felicity should just leave. Leave the city. Leave…

Again; her gut clenched. The city was her home.

 _This is ridiculous_. Making a sound beneath her breath - one she knew Susan could hear, because they were far past pretending to like the other - her eyes opened, and she twisted smoothly on the spot. This really did have nothing to do with Oliver; Susan was a current threat to Felicity’s mission. _And what do you normally do to threats, Felicity?_ She neutralises them. “Is there something I can do for you?”

Nice and _loud_.

Taken aback, Susan looked like she’d hit a brick wall. Like the way cats do when a firework goes off: hairs on their back stood to attention, eyes wide, body quite still. It was almost funny: it had stopped her still. _Good_. Felicity didn’t really want Susan anywhere near her.

But the reporter took a deep breath - as if _she_ was asking for patience and my _God_ yes; Felicity _really_ didn’t want to deal with this person - clasping her hands together at the front. “We’re supposed to be having lunch.”

 _Are you kidding me?_ “No,” brows raised high, Felicity slowly lifted a finger to _elongate_ her point, “ _you_ decided that. _I_ decided I would rather die the death of a 1000 cuts.”

Not a lie.

A confused frown made the bridge of Oliver’s whatever the hell she was - because girlfriend certainly wasn’t it, no matter how much she wished she was, _and she does_ \- nose almost literally _bend_. “What?”

 _Oh, come on; it’s not hard_. “I’m not having lunch with you.” Stressing each and every word, just in case Susan’s filter had randomly switched to Swahili and it might have, Felicity made to turn away and-

Her phone started to buzz.

 _Please let it be Curtis_ , she thought as she searched her bag for her cell, _techno-babble, logic and other people’s problems are exactly what the doctor ordered-_

It was Oliver.

She stared at the screen.

It had taken longer than she cared to admit, choosing which of the many - _I die_ \- pictures she had of Oliver would be best for his profile on her phone. Nothing from their hours in the Foundry or the bunker, _oh I miss the Foundry_. The seclusion. The simplicity of what they used to be.

It was a simple picture. One she’d taken because he hadn’t known she was taking it. Her favourite.

It hurt to look at now.

The longer she stared, the more the amalgamation in her gut churned. There were too many things, too many emotions - the urge to flee strong, the need to storm back upstairs and have the shouting match of the century; _the verbal battle to end the war_ \- fervent within her, the very real _nothingness_ that came when something inside you dies-

There was too much.

She disconnected the call. _It’s nothing_. “As I was saying,” swallowing away the dryness in her mouth, just barely stopping her voice from wobbling, she lifted her eyes to a still confused Susan, “I’m not-”

Her phone stated buzzing again.

She sucked in a breath, chest clenching, eyes briefly closing.

He was calling her again.

He cared enough about her feelings to keep calling.

 _That’s not fair_. She didn’t want to feel that. Relief. Pleasure. She didn’t want to feel anything that would make her _understand_ him; be it compassion or empathy, anything that would make her want to smoothen this for him.

But it was irresistible; breathing in the fact that he was calling her, while simultaneously hating that he was.

Had their relationship always been this unhealthy? Or was she just pushed so far to her ever-loving limit that she felt overstimulated?

 _Let me go, Oliver_. “I don’t want to have lunch with you, Miss Williams. In fact, I’d prefer it if we never had to breathe the same air ever again.” Chance was a fine thing, “Alas,” head tilting, eyes still closed, Felicity’s closed-lipped smile wasn’t a mockery of Susan, but of her own life just then, “we can’t always have what we want.”

Another ugly truth. Felicity, getting what she wanted, was a realm of possibility she’d never touched.

 _Ok, that’s unfair_. There were many things she’d been given over the years; but the cons seemed to outweigh the pros. Always, _always_.

Only for people like the reporter before her who’d sold out her ethics and common sense for common _sex_ and a shot at the story of a lifetime, did luck and love and happiness reign down. _Nice guys really do finish last_. Or, nice girls, in Felicity’s sense. Or maybe not because, what was Susan really gaining from this nonsensical bullshit with Oliver?

The buzzing, her cell, stopped.

Her chest unclenched as she felt Susan shift. “I can respect that.”

 _Ok, what?_ Eyes flying open, they landed on the woman before her and Felicity, eyes narrowed - nose just a tad crinkled, _do not trust you_ \- watched as Susan took several moments to _think_.

Riiiiight.

To _plan_.

This was what reporters are good at, if they’d had experience in the field of ‘reporting’. Twisting truths. Feigning remorse. Burying conscience. Taking pieces of lives. Acting the part. They’re almost like spies, except, they weren’t supposed to become involved with their stories.

Susan opened her mouth, _here we go_. “I haven’t treated you fairly.” She started, and her expression - her voice - was so contrite, Felicity almost believed her. But it was a couple of years of her popping in intermittently and pushing all the wrong buttons, too late. “I’m so used to seeing facts instead of people and-”

 _Please_. “Spare me.” Rolling her eyes - doing a nice big show of it - Felicity shifted until her hands were in the pockets of her coat and yes, _there_ was the frustration beneath the fake. Beneath the pretend patience and kindness in the reporter’s cheeks and jaw and posture. Susan wanted something. _I see you_. “You wanted out of there,” Felicity’s eyes lifted high towards the top floor of the building they stood next to, “and away from Oliver, to get me alone. Now, if it was just about our ‘talk,” hands slipping out of her pockets, _just_ so she could perform the apropos bunny ears, “you wouldn’t have suggested lunch.” Eyes locking onto Susan’s, Felicity hazarded a guess, her voice dropping low. “There’s something you think you know.”

Brown eyes furtively glancing left and right - _and the award for best melodrama goes to_ \- Susan looked a little put on the spot.

“And you want it confirmed.” Felicity quietly guessed.

Stealing herself, Susan reined in. Standing straighter. Looking down at Felicity - there was several inches difference in height, because obviously Oliver has a thing for taller women - who simply stood there, waiting for the penny- the whole rolls of _coins_ , to drop.

It lasted about 4 seconds; Felicity didn’t do staring contests with anyone who’s first name didn’t start with an O. It was a battle of wills Susan wanted to win before she gave up her piece. She needed the slice of power - of dominion - over Felicity so that any feelings of self-corruption could be negated by an almost gentle form of superiority.

Like, _alright; I shouldn’t have done what I did but it’s ok because Oliver will understand and I’m a reporter who blah blah blah_ , and that any mistakes made had been made at the route of **good intentions**.

 _Hah, no._ “Not interested.” She’d had enough people in her life before who’d thought they’d known better than everyone else - her father, Malcolm, Slade, Ra’s, Laurel, Moira, Oliver himself - and she wasn’t about to add Susan to that particular pile of headaches, though she definitely was worthy of the title of migraine. “Have a nice day Miss Williams.”

Or not. _Have a bad day free from me; I have several_.

Walking around her - jolting as she did when her phone started buzzing for the **fourth** time, _ignore it; he has a meeting in five minutes, he’ll stop. He’ll stop. He will. He’ll have to_ \- and debating the pros of a latte lunch when-

“How did you know I’d had him followed?”

Susan had hurried up after her, jogging to Felicity who didn’t stop walking, but also didn’t hide her groan of annoyance. “Seriously?”

Susan, stepped around the strangers filing past. “It wasn’t like I was trying to invade his privacy-”

 _Oh, hah. Good one_. “You wanted leverage; information for a jump start on your latest obsession, which - by the way - has lasted 2 years.” She couldn’t even laugh, though she almost scoffed; feeling wretched at the urge and wanting Susan to ‘make haste’ elsewhere. “What,” her eyes flickered to the brunette at her heels and it was odd that someone had to keep up with her, _maybe I’m power walking the crap out of today_ , “did you think you’d be married by now-”

Wait.

She faltered, stopping and peering into Susan’s face when she stopped with her: it was supremely painful how evident the woman’s thoughts were just then because-

“You did, didn’t you? You thought you’d be…” trailing off, Felicity gaped as Susan floundered - _floundered_ \- for words. _Oh my god._

Stunned, something inside her made her feel so utterly sorry for this woman. _Oh, you poor, obsessed idiot_. And it wasn’t mocking or playful, the slight laughter that bubbled up. Near-hysterical, it was a painful sound; one she felt like a stitch. “And when it didn’t happen you, what?” She choked it down, but it coated her tone and Susan’s face turned to stone; she didn’t know Felicity well enough to deduce that she didn’t find a single thing funny. “Decided to start _investigating_ him?”

Maybe to find out why their ‘thing’ hadn’t progressed to something that could be labelled with an _appellation_ that with more than one syllable. Something that started ‘girlfriend’ and ended ‘fiancé’?

Susan’s cheek flexed; brown eyes actually a shade of hurt Felicity had seen before. On other women Oliver had slept with, _Jesus_. “How _dare_ you.” Her voice was low but not unfeeling. “You have no idea what I was trying to do.”

“Are you actually trying to take the moral high ground right now?” The reporter pursed her lips and, _that’s a yep_. “Good luck with that.” Good luck with getting it to sound like anything more than crappy sex. _I hope you had all the crappy sex you could get_ , because it would never compare to making love.

You couldn’t truly ‘make love’ when you weren’t in love. Well… you _kind_ of could. But it isn’t the same. You could create a caring atmosphere during sex. You could be tender and affectionate and _loving_ in bed. But it didn’t mean love. Obviously, Susan didn’t know any different.

Glancing to the ground, Susan spoke. “I’m not talking about this with you.” It was her prerogative and-

“Thank god.” _Truly_. “It’s enough _watching_ this derailed train.” Felicity muttered, hoping Susan would disappear in a puff of smoke and wind.

“You know,” _of course she wouldn’t_ , “I think someone who is actually _in_ a relationship with Oliver,” Susan pounced, “should be the one to-”

“Give a crap?” Hands lifting, _look at all the fucks I don’t have_ , Felicity stated the obvious. “Please do. I’m not the one following me.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Absently replying, “You’re not as stealthy as you think you are,” eyes on the traffic, Felicity cut through the waiting cars towards the path that led to Jitters. _The biggest latte. Full fat._ _A Susan free zone._

But, breathless, Susan was still following. “Will you let me explain-”

 _God, why?_ “Why you had the ‘story you like to shag’ followed?” It was with a particular kind of glee that she was finally able to label all the stupid in the air and watch as Susan stupidly looked about her, as if her colleagues were hiding in bushes and behind cars, ready to jump out and say _I knew it!_ “I’d rather you didn’t.” They _just_ made it before the cars started moving again, “it’s not really something I want to know.”

“I wasn’t trying to-”

“Find out all his secrets?” Felicity hedged in. “I think that’s exactly what you were doing.”

“You aren’t giving me a lot of room here.”

Exhaling, Felicity came to a halt so abruptly that Susan staggered past her a few steps. _Usually, I’m the clumsy one_. “Look, I don’t have to give you anything. And deep down, you’d rather not be talking to me either, don’t lie.” She added at the way Susan opened her mouth to defend against the truth. “Right now, you’re just worried that I’ll tell Oliver.”

There was a pause.

Then-

“He’s a man keeps a lot to himself.”

Felicity’s head tilted to gage her. “And that’s all yours for the taking, whether he wants to give it to you or not?”

Defiantly, Susan was as direct as Susan could be as she finished what she clearly had wanted to say earlier. “You realise, it has nothing to do with you?” Her eyes looked her up and down. “You work for him. You don’t sleep with him.”

For.

Works _for_ him.

 _Doesn’t_ sleep with him.

And it was probably the only hit Susan could get right then, surpassing a level of catty even Laurel couldn’t reach. It was pretty sad actually.

Painful.

“You’re right.” Felicity nodded, hating this entire conversation and how she was, once again, getting nothing from it. “I’m not sleeping with him. And I _won’t_ sleep with him.” At Susan’s inquisitive confusion - _yes, I can abstain from sex with a hot guy_ \- Felicity felt a great need indeed. “Oliver doesn’t _do_ relationships.”

Susan recoiled, like Felicity had cut her.

“It’s been what, two years?” She pointedly reminded the older woman. “Be proud.” The need still there, an uncharacteristic smile spread across Felicity’s face and she was disappointed in herself for _wanting_ to say what she was about to say. “You wrote about me being an easy lay when you first came to the City. You’re the only one here who’s _still_ being bought with sex.”

Her silence. Her interest. Her ability to promote QC through her reporting.

And maybe Felicity deserved to say it. To speak the truth others only tip toed around, after all: how many times had she put her friendship on the line with Oliver - not knowing it was a lie - to be honest with him?

And Susan… for the first time since meeting her, Felicity saw the woman beneath the journalist. A woman who liked a man who wouldn’t strive for more with her. A woman who’d sunk to shallow depths to attain further intimacy with him, all the while painfully aware that it wasn’t the same if he didn’t trust her. Probably warring with the reporter side of her that didn’t care if he did or not, as long as she knew. A woman who wanted every slice of cake to eat and _then_ some and knew she wasn’t going to get it, so she’d bake her _own_ cake.

And it wasn’t any of Felicity’s business to judge what other people did with each other or why. _Let them hurt each other._

 _I should take it back_. Except-

The numerous digs at her age, intelligence, attire and experience over the years. Writing a demeaning article that had several male employees afterwards, make advances that suggested they thought Oliver had _bought_ her _assistance_. The few friends in the building, excluding Curtis, who dropped her once they thought she’d lied about her nature. The fact that Susan was a credible reporter who knew that what she printed was read by many in the building and that they’d take her word for it and yet, she hadn’t cared about ensuring the truth before printing her words. That she was building up a database of all things Oliver Queen and would, if given half a chance, expose him to the world if he so much as…

Actually, she didn’t know. Felicity didn’t know what Oliver would have to do. Chances were, he’d be totally fine with having his privacy invaded because if there was anything Oliver was good at, other than shooting arrows into bad people, it was wearing rose coloured glasses with the women he slept with. They could do no wrong even when they did wrong.

But if there was any small chance that Susan would use what she’d garnered to endanger them all, then Felicity had to make sure this woman knew that Felicity saw right through her. A chance for Susan to choose.

“Doesn’t feel good, does it?” _No, it does not_.

If the very real _glimmer_ in Susan’s eyes was anything to go by, Felicity had struck a very painful nerve. “What are you going to do?” It looked like the _last_ thing Susan wanted to ask.

“You mean, what are _you_ going to do?” Felicity leaned forwards a tad. “1, 2, 3, 4 is literally the _worst_ password,” proof that Susan’s face didn’t suit pallidity, was in the pudding of Felicity’s words, “you could have chosen and the first one most people try.” Sending her a pained look, “next time, mix it up a little?” _Give me something to fight against_.

Give her something to make Felicity understand the pull of this woman for Oliver.

The way Susan was looking at Felicity, like she was a live wire about to go off…

And, of course, the way she looked beyond insulted.

Felicity started walking. Away. Done with this. “Keep safe, Miss Williams.” She sighed. _Make it harder for me to get at you._

She needed coffee. She needed it so much she deliberately didn’t watch Susan as the woman moved quickly in the opposite direction. As she pulled out her phone and began an all new level of invasion of privacy.

She could have pulled out a gun and shot Felicity in the back for all the good it would have done. _Coffee, coffee, coffee…_

And after the caffeine had kicked in, when she was back at QC and staring up at the lift as it _dragged_ itself towards he, she felt almost blissfully numb of it all. But trepidation was a killer and the milk in her stomach started to curdle. _Ugh_ , not an image she needed just then. _There’s benzo’s upstairs…_

She’d always wondered about that: if she and Oliver had dated, how many would she have had to take?

The bottom dropped out of her stomach. _Way to go._ Deep sadness replaced the numb and her hand lifted as she stepped inside the elevator: raised to rub her temple. Her eyes closed.

She didn’t know what she wanted to do.

Everything hurt yet, she felt oddly relieved too. She’d spoken the words allowed. He’d heard them.

She didn’t want to see him. She wanted him to show _something_. Even if it was stupid, just _some_ emotion. She didn’t want to talk to him. But she wanted to hear his voice, knowing it would piss her off. She wanted to pack up all her things and walk away forever. She wanted to stay because she was committed to both jobs, because she wanted him to see the virtue in their work. She wanted a friend, wanted Diggle. She wanted to understand. She needed Oliver to reject everything, to tell her something _real_. Even if she wouldn’t believe him, she needed him to try.

She wanted-

Needed-

 _If I bump into Susan_ , Or the both of them together… she shouldn’t run.

But maybe, she should just go home. Leave while she had a shred of dignity left (though her self-respect was flying high), while she wasn’t itching to sprint away, to hit something, to cry, to scream to do one thousand things all at once that would let her vent.

While she wanted to be touched. While she wanted to be left alone.

Then the lift pinged its entrance to her office and the decision was taken from her. _I don’t care_. She could admit to herself that, she’d run before. From the truth, in the past. Her father- she’d deliberately decided to never want anything to do with him should he ever resurface, despite whatever remorse he may feel. After Cooper’s death, she’d changed everything about herself, but it had felt more like falling into who she’d always been. Still, she’d left her friends at MIT and cut all ties with them. She’d refused any reminder of what had happened because she honestly thought she couldn’t take the fact that… people would leave her. Always. Emotionally, physically: she wasn’t enough for them to stay.

Was it her bumbling, babbling, ridiculousness? The way she always seemed to say whatever was in her head, without filter? The way she just wasn’t quite hot enough, wasn’t quite good enough? The way she tired, did she try too hard? Was it irritating? Was _she_ irritating? Unlovable?

Oliver. He was leaving her. In one way of another, he was leaving her behind.

 _I should leave first._ Get ahead. Start anew.

It took more than she thought it would, to step out from behind the elevator doors - _gulp_ \- and it took her a few seconds to note the silence.

The stillness.

…Did he leave?

 _If he’s in his office, I’ll just_ \- what? Sneak away? Ignore him? Say _hi_ like a lunatic? She practically ghost-walked down the hallway leading up to her desk. _Pretend nothing happened?_ That wasn’t optional. _Ok, then if he-_

Too many ifs.

 _This used to be easier_. Being herself. Being Oliver’s partner, real or not. She felt like the floor had fallen from under her feet. _You said what you said: own it._

But when she reached the end - stomach clenching, hands sweating - she peeked, barely a side-eye, through the glass windows to her right and-

He wasn’t there.

 _Oh_.

Her stomach didn’t unclench; instead, it tipped. _Typical_. She didn’t even get to feel good about his absence.

“Clearly, I need help.” She muttered to herself, her hand lifting: fingers rubbed at her forehead. “Or something.”

An orgasm? Laughter? Chocolate? A new job?

The truth?

She’d wanted Oliver to be waiting for her.

To show regret, to prove that no; this wasn’t fine. What he really wanted, was for her to stay. He’d done, said, the wrong thing and he was really sorry.

But he’d left.

 _Get a grip_. There were back to back meetings till 4pm; she wouldn’t be seeing him anyway.

Did she even want to, really?

And the officiary would have come get him if Oliver had stayed in his office. It had happened before, much to her amusement - seeing Oliver being hassled by the 5-foot 3-inch officiator - and, _why are all my memories tainted now?_ There was a place deep inside her that couldn’t believe that Oliver didn’t- that he wasn’t-

_No._

Right now, her job mattered. He’d said what he’d said, she’d responded. It was done.

 _He wants me to leave?_ Well, she wanted a position that would make sure she never looked back over her shoulder. _Better get started_.

Walking round to the front of her desk, she dropped her bag, hung her coat on the back of her chair and started up the monitor she’d shut down. But she didn’t sit. She felt uneasy. Restless. _I shouldn’t have had that coffee_.

She hated that she was already planning an early exit strategy _. I’m such a wimp._ Except she didn’t need another round of ‘you’re important, just not important enough’. She didn’t have it in her. Bright lipsticks and dresses to match weren’t good enough shields to hold up against that kind of attack. It might literally put her to the ground.

 _And after this, I have a_ wonderful _night ahead of existing in Oliver’s ear_. For the first time, it felt like a punishment. A chore.

It made her fear.

_What if everything changes?_

What if nothing changed?

What if the next few days, weeks, months… what if they stayed the same? Wasn’t that worse? To have the truth come out only for nothing to come of it? Worse still-

_What if he doesn’t want me there after this?_

Did he even have a choice at this point?

 _Could_ he even do what he does without her? No. He couldn’t. And did it even matter? Was anything past the perfunctory required to do their jobs? They were adults: they could this without being remotely friendly. But, at the very least it would be awkward. And John would be back; he’d want to know-

_What is that?_

As she’d bent forwards for her mouse, the sheen of light - the glare - on the clear pane of glass covering Oliver’s office from the sun, vanished. Once, it had made her feel a little exposed and a lot warm: there was one transparent pane to one translucent one and so on and so forth, surrounding Oliver’s office. Sometimes she couldn’t see him because of it but, he would always be able to see her.

There’d been more than once, where she’d peer out of her eye, to see him looking at her as he typed. As he spoke on the phone. Maybe that wasn’t real either.

Then the earth would continue to rotate, and the spell would drop. Like now.

And right there-

Oliver’s desk was turned over on the floor.

Her heart flipped.

The desk lamp he’d been staring at so avidly before so as to not see her - and wasn’t that confusing; that a man who’d proven to not care about her the way she thought he did, needed to hide in plain sight - the laptop she’d made sure was up to par - _the sacrilege, poor baby_ \- his precious papers, the pens he kept in a black pot, his files; all of it, spread out in disarray over the pristine grey floor. And the table itself: upended - legs pointing to the ceiling - it had crashed into the wooden panelling, denting it.

Open mouthed, wide eyed, she stared.

They’d just been _left_ there.

Oliver was anal; what most would call a neat freak but what _she_ knew to be a facet of his major need to control as much of his environment as he could reach. It came with the added - happy - coincidence of making him genuinely hygienic. A model of cleanliness and hospitality. Each object he’d allowed in his office was a certain inch allowance from a wall or corner, each utensil had a space circling it so as to leave room for adjustment. The pens were just far enough away from the lamp so that he wouldn’t nudge them if he needed to flick it on. That kind of anal.

He’d never leave his office like that.

He’d never walk away from it.

It prickled at the base of her spine - an odd tension gathering beneath her diaphragm, making her race - and she swallowed it down.

 _He’d_ done that.

Recently.

As in-

_After I left?_

It, as the antiquated phrase so inadequately stated, took her breath away. Made her reel. Made her want to do things that had little to do with self-respect and a lot to do with feeling good for a moment. _Moments are momentary for a reason,_ she thought, her eyes searching the destruction, _which why you are not going to give in_. And let it go.

She had in a sense. He was free to care about whoever he wanted. If he didn’t want her friendship, fine. But what he could do, shouldn’t do, is take her feelings for granted because that led down an even darker road for her. What if he just hadn’t thought about that? Her feelings slipping his mind as everything else took precedence. All she’d wanted was a second here and there. A moment. A word. He’d given her nothing.

And yet… _this_.

Awareness a weight on her back, she straightened. The translucent pane covered the mess once more and she moved around her desk, slowly, to see it again. To make sure it existed, that she wasn’t just imagining it.

Proof that Oliver Queen gave a damn.

It was visceral. Turning over his desk; a real, raw reaction. _Am I jumping to conclusions?_ He could have received a phone call. Something could have happened in the time she’d been out of the office, something that sparked a passionate act of-

Violence. It reeked of desperation. Or desperate anger.

She’d told him she was leaving. That he’d hurt her. And-

_Desk go splat._

Her eyes shut tight.

He felt.

 _But it isn’t enough_. It was confusing, ridiculous and wonderful, and it wasn’t _enough_.

It was a _something_.

Sniffing - eyes re-opening - _I’m not cleaning that_ , she made to- to _do_ something. Anything- _At least_ pretend _to work-_

“Miss Smoak?!”

She yelped, jolting hard and feeling her soul rise a half mile in the air. Hand on her chest. Jaw locking. Slowly, she turned on the spot towards the intruder. Ten years scrapped off her life. “Was that necessary?”

The officiator.

Hands stretched wide, a ‘where have you been’, the little man looked a _lot_ worried as he power walked towards her. “Why are you up here?!”

Blinking at the way he’d started to flap, the way his tone screamed _help me_ ; her eyes flew left to right. “Um, I-I work here?” She didn’t normally accompany Oliver to those meetings and-

“Nu uh,” head shaking, eyes comically wide, “not today.” He was still walking towards her, well; _he’s a little shorter than me so_ \- “Mr Wayne’s visiting today to see the-”

 _Oh God_. “The proposal to make R &D a standalone subsidiary of QC,” a possible merger between Wayne and Queen Consolidated, securing them for the foreseeable future as the literal saviours of Star City, Bludhaven and Gotham… and she’d _forgotten_ , “right.” Wincing, she cleared her throat, _frack it_. “Does Mr Queen have his notes?”

“I have no idea!” _A little help here buddy?_ “But he looks he’s just been told he’s _dying_.”

Brain error, 404.

“Actually, he does look a bit sick.” _Alert_. _Alert_. “Is he? It wouldn’t be the best time for him to come down with something.” The officiator continued, not noticing the same malaise in her. “Did he eat something funny for lunch? I mean, I came to get him, and he marched out of his office like a man who really needed a toilet to throw up in,” _ew_ , “until I reminded him about the- Oh, never mind.” He immediately dismissed, not waiting for an answer, thankfully, because beyond a gormless fish expression, Felicity hadn’t a clue what to say. Maybe he was speaking in some strange dialect; a derivative of English that she hadn’t heard before. “The problem is, Mr Wayne needs someone who can translate all the science in the room!” And by ‘all the science in the room’ he meant that they - the company as a whole - had two supremely pompous, know-it-all co-heads of the R&D department - who were (deliberately) incapable of translating their _nerd-speak_ into layman’s terms or plain English of any form, in which case- voila! Felicity to the rescue!

Either way, she was insulted. Nerd-speak, it may be. But it was also something she’d acquired from an academic history most in the building couldn’t boast about. On the other hand, she was an EA, considered a glorified _secretary_ , and yet trusted with said nerd-speak.

“Mr Wayne is _more_ than proficient: he can understand them _just_ fine.” Which was why her eye-roll was imminent; Mr Wayne also held the kind of academic standing most could only dream of. Herself included. Except, you know, for double degree and masters she’d acquired in 3 years instead of the prerequisite 7. “He doesn’t need me-”

“He asked for you, actually.” And was that sweat on his brow? Because that didn’t make her feel any better at all. While he was, in general, supremely flappable, he also didn’t become flappable because of _people_. It was normally because of money. _How bad does Oliver look?_ “ _Specifically_ , for you.” He cleared his throat; his eyes checking out of the conversation towards Oliver’s office and the- yeah. The office. “I think he likes you. What the… what happened to CEO Queen’s _desk_?!”

Felicity was elsewhere.

Of _course_ , he liked her. Mr Wayne liked a _lot_ of women; any woman within a 5-mile radius of wherever he stood in fact. He absorbed sex like it was the same protein shakes he consumed in early morning meetings. And that’s what it was about. Sex as nourishment. He wasn’t at all licentious or lascivious: it was more a staple of his life now. If he was anything like Oliver, and she knew more than most about that, he probably used sex as a stand-in for intimacy.

And as part of the image he sold.

Bruce. Wayne.

Another thing about this man.

_If Oliver holds the monopoly on dichotomies, then someone please explain to me the gulfs and borders that make the CEO Of Wayne Everything In Gotham Incorporated, more so._

If she hadn’t met Oliver, she may have been fooled.

The Fort Knox of secrets, Bruce Wayne hid them with the kind of aplomb Oliver had never achieved before, and maybe that was why she saw it. His _lack_ of tell gave him away. Oliver had a thousand of them, so perfectly combined with his multitude of personalities that it was rare when someone caught the sliver of truth.

Bruce Wayne… was Bruce Wayne.

Except when wasn’t.

He’d visited their company 3 times in as many months and each time, he’d flirted with the CEO’s EA. _With me_. And he’d done it so seamlessly… the first time, she’d almost missed it. Having not expected it, especially not from a man who was practically an alternate Oliver. It had seemed benign at first; the flirty-flirt. Then there’d been what she was _sure_ was a calculated alteration. Something made him continue. Push. Flatter. Tease. Tempt.

 _As if it isn’t anything more than 2 Alpha Males occupying the same air space._ They liked to try to pee in each other’s backyards. _I am not the tree_.

Not that Mr Wayne needed to bother; Oliver had never shown a hint of jealousy or even possessive marking of territory. _I mean, there was that one time_ … a look had been sent, a moment where Oliver’s jaw had locked, when he’d stood perfectly still. Watching. _But I’m putting that down to indigestion because anything doesn’t make sense any more._

Like, the vibe she’d been sure had existence once upon a time between her a certain green leather wearing vigilante.

Still, Mr Wayne would send Oliver this _smile_ sometimes - the bold smile of a self-assured individual who knew more than the other party (Oliver) as he asked silent questions; a gaze that said _there’s nothing you can do about me_ \- when he’d speak to her, with a voice that was so mellow, she’d relax into his presence like she would the softest leather recliner. And the clear attention to detail in each magnanimous gesture Bruce Wayne would throw her way, every brief focus on whichever humanitarian cause; she knew it was all ego and prestige. Noblesse Oblige. But it felt good. _I don’t care if that makes me weak._

Bruce Wayne made her feel like she was the only person in the room sometimes and while she knew it was part _play_ , any woman would welcome it.

 _Did I mention that he’s also The Batman?_ The same vigilante Gotham City had been clamouring about for the past 3 years. _I didn’t? Oh._

It hadn’t taken her long to figure out. In many ways, he and Oliver were _exactly_ the same. _I really do have a type_.

So, when she arrived downstairs - much to the officiator’s relief - and pushed through the glass doors of the executive meeting quarters - _I disliked that you can see through every wall in here years ago_ , now it gnawed at her spine: _like one giant fishbowl_ \- she wasn’t surprised to see Mr Wayne already in deep conversation. Wasn’t surprised to see him turn at the quietest _sshk_ of the door closing. Not thrown, intimidated or flustered by the way he looked at her entry - the way the side of his mouth softened, the nod in her direction, the linger of his eyes on her figure - forgetting briefly about who he was talking to and why. Not stunned by his dark eyes. _Warm_ eyes. Intelligent, shrewd eyes. His ever-present charisma, wit - some of the smart-ass variety - and sincerity; all of it aimed at her from across the room.

Their usual **tête-à-tête** **.**

She smiled back: not quite closed lipped, nor a reprimand. More ‘later is better Mr Wayne’ and, was that a flat out smirk he was sending her? Yeah, he loved this. _Maybe he’d just really bored and I’m the only one who’ll play with him_. There were other ways she could play with them. All of them involved silk sheets. And other things. It would be a great way to forget the world for a while and by the way he always was with her, she was sure he wouldn’t mind _at all_.

There was attraction here: she didn’t deny it. But it was inferior, which was maybe why she’d never taken Mr Wayne up on any of his offers. There had been several. Colourful ones too. The like that kept her awake at night. And yet, even with all the silent promises to give her a night or weekend to remember in everything he said and did - because body language comprised of 85% of discourse - it was still so very inferior to what she felt for-

For the man he was, had been - was still - talking to.

For the man who knocked the breath out of her with a _look_ on a normal day.

For the man who hadn’t given her much thought in long enough that the way he was looking at her _now_ , make her throat close and stomach flip.

The man who Bruce Wayne had ceased to exist for.

It was like he’d _found_ her.

Maybe that was why she missed the question thrown her way by the second co-head of Research and Development. Why the room became a din of silence instead of flustered questions, coffee cups being placed before the seats of department heads, the coffee machine swishing its way through the day, the officiator explaining to several financial guppies the importance of the next 30 minutes, and the floor’s receptionist occupying the phone lines.

He didn’t need to speak for her to know that his voice would be hoarse; husky with the weight of sheer feeling in his eyes alone. That soft destruction in him, the way he could kill himself and offer it with a look, a word.

The way his lips had parted ever so slightly, like he couldn’t help himself - as if she’d knocked the wind out of him too, which was odd because this was _Oliver_ and she was just his IT girl - as if her presence _affected_ him enough to show a room full of people, which, you know- it never _had_ before.

 _He must have run his hands through his hair a few times and the top button of his shirt is undone_ , she figured and yes, she was determinedly not thinking about the hue of black - the shadows of regret - in the _blue_ of those eyes that she loved so much. In the anguish twisting him inside and out, the yawning scope of whatever was in him that made him choose misery over and _over_ again. The yearning in the lines of his face. The slump of his broad shoulders, the way his hands hadn’t stopped fidgeting, the way he’d subconsciously turned in her direction and scream in him.

Affected.

She was missing something. In the wrong he’d done, the way he’d made her feel, there was something she didn’t know. This reaction…

He’d never looked at her like this before. There’d been other occasions, other moments in time-

_“Oh, you were shot-”_

_“Hey… it’s nothing.”_

And-

_“We’ll get Damien. There’s enough of us now… Roy’s been itching to take the mantle for a while if you need a break.”_

_Hands in his pockets, butt in the chair next her station as she worked, Oliver hummed. “Do you need a break?”_

_“I don’t know;” she blinked before tilting her head, “can we even vacation during a time like this?”_

_“I mean,” he licked his lips, and there was no frown or worry in his face, “if you could?”_

_She considered. “…I’ve never really been anywhere. Maybe”-_

_“Bali?” He offered and_ oh _, that was soft._

_His eyes, his face, his smile, his voice._

_Her smile was a tad trembling. Unsure. “Bali. Cape Horn. Aruba.”_

_He nodded. “You’ve thought about it.”_

_“A little…”_

_“One day.”_

_“Yeah.”_

The one time she’d tried to talk about Roy’s death and the savage look he’d shot at her for trying.

“And I think we have a-” Seeing something no one else could - or maybe Mr Wayne simply noticed that the CEO of Queen Consolidated’s attention was no longer on him - stopped mid-sentence. “Mr Queen?” No response. “Oliver?”

 _Oliver_ was elsewhere. He was-

_Why are you doing this?_

Making her believe? Making her think she’d been wrong even though his actions spoke for themselves? Making anger bloat under the curl of longing in her. Making her jaw lock and her nerves quake.

It had been… years. _It’s been years and he still-_

He could still make her _feel_. Could still make her stop, make her surroundings disappear.

With a _look_.

Yes, it made her angry.

It enabled her to yank herself away from him.

And Mr Wayne, she saw him take a moment to _see_ the man in front of him.

The man openly watching his EA, unblinking. So much to say, that he couldn’t speak a word. The grey underlining his eyes. And maybe Bruce Wayne knew something she didn’t.

“Something wrong, friend?” With an undertone _so_ low, Felicity felt it vibrate through the floor to where she stood, Mr Wayne spoke a thousand implications. “See something new?”

Slowly, Oliver’s head moved back to the owner of Wayne Everything and… to say that he just frowned at the suggestion, was the massively understate the expression that transformed the entirety of Oliver’s countenance and-

_Is he… angry?_

At Bruce Wayne?

She’d seen his eyes grow angry before. She knew that look.

Bewildered. Alarmed. So hurt that even if Oliver leapt across the table to her and promised that it had all been a farce, that he could fix everything, she’d tell him no.

No more.

Though part of her wanted him to. Badly. Even if it was just because he didn’t want to lose her.

Clearing her throat, she excused herself from the pomp and circumstance of the scientists and moved towards the seat the Officiator indicated she sit in. In her peripheral she caught the tail-end of what Mr Wayne was saying and _doing_.

“…daydreaming.” Glimpsing both of his hands returning to their respective pockets, she saw Mr Wayne’s head tilt just so. Like he was joking. And yet… not. At all. Maybe the Batman in him allowed him to do both. “I know she’s beautiful but rein in it my friend.”

Throat closing in surprise, she started coughing. Loudly. And a lot. _Couldn’t this day just end already-_

“Here you go.” Though not whiskey like sin - like Oliver’s - it was a voice still hushed and damn attractive, accompanied the hand holding a glass of water.

She took a sip. “Thank you.” Mr Wayne.

_Now, go away._

She could draw attention like light drew flies.

There was a smile coating his voice. “Anytime.”

Then he moved around the table and sat, and it was as if an unspoken cue had been shouted into the room: everyone else moved with him. For a minute, the scrapping of chairs being pulled and the chink of cups, the murmur of low voices, was all she heard.

She didn’t look up.

Didn’t move to see him.

But she could feel his eyes on her. She’d always been able to feel his eyes on - like a seventh sense - which was why her unrequited 5 year stretch of love and hope and want made little sense to her. How could something so strong be so one sided?

Had she really wasted 5 years of her life?

Her instincts were better than most believed a spectacle wearing, blond IT girl’s instincts could be. The same people who saw her job, her clothes and her bright attitude but not the genius woman beneath. Her instincts told her she didn’t have the full picture. But they were the same voices that had once whispered to her that Oliver might feel the same.

The same voices that told her to wait now. She’d waited for 5 years; surely, she had patience to wait a little more to understand?

Other parts - heart, her mountain of insecurities - told her she didn’t care. She was done. She was hurt, and she was _done_ trying to pick up the pieces. Finished with hoping Oliver would get a happily ever after, even if she didn’t. Over needing to care so much about whether he was happy.

Hating that she still wanted him to be regardless.

You see, she didn’t work that way. Couldn’t turn off the parts of her that cared, the parts that understood empathy, the parts that hoped regardless of hopeless circumstances. She was a person who wanted the people around her to be happy, always. But that naive, so the best she could strive for, was to try and help them in that venture.

Yet, this made her see that she wasn’t ready: not to talk to him, not to understand. She wanted - needed - to be stone. If she was to survive this meeting without running out of it, she’d have to-

She heard him sit next to her; a slow slide into his seat, as if he was waiting for a reaction. His swallow was _loud_. Saw him out of the peripheral of her eye, twisting around just as he had a thousand times before, to fit comfortably beneath the table and maybe lean towards her to discuss notes.

Except - this time - she _felt_ him there. It was unbelievably unfair; she didn’t have to look at him. He was right there, against every inch of her.

As if he was looking into her: his attention so attuned, she felt it travel over her skin and hold on tight.

This wasn’t normal Oliver Queen behaviour. She needed it to stop, even though she’d wished for something like this for so long…

Since they’d first started working together at QC.

It was _real_.

But he’d repressed the real.

Which was why, it wasn’t enough.

“I-” The stroke of his voice was an insult right then and there. “Felicity-”

_Please._

_Please look at me._

_Talk to me, Felicity._

_I’m sorry-_

“No.” She didn’t look up from the laptop she was already typing away on.

She heard his breath quicken, the seat of his chair creak ever so slightly as he leaned closer. “I don’t deserve it, but I’m asking anyway.” The whisper was low, quiet. Controlled. Heavy. “Felicity, please-”

“No.”

She couldn’t. Not here. Not now.

“…Okay.” He sounded small. Fearful.

But he leaned away from her anyway and yes, she _did_ know him; even if the past 24 hours had proven otherwise, she knew that he was giving her the space she needed. He didn’t want to, but he was doing it anyway. For her.

She had to push that down - face set to composure - as she pulled up everything they’d need for this meeting.

_“I didn’t see what you’d decided to do. Or that you’d think I’ve wasted years of my life.”_

_As if life had been forced down his gullet once more, this noise - something that sound liked shards of glass being swallowed - cracked through his quiet. “No-”_

_“-But that’s ok. I get to go have lunch with your sex buddy.”_

_He flinched, looking like he couldn’t move for breath but otherwise. “Felicity-”_

Push. It. Down.

“Ladies. Gentlemen.” Bruce Wayne’s gaze settled on the officiator who was practically bouncing up and down where he sat, and his brow furrowed. “And, ah, you.” Seated, effortlessly comfortable and confident - _when will I feel like that_ \- he levelled the room with a look, shifting his tie in place the same way she’d seen Oliver do many times before. “I want this to work.”

“We all do.” And it was so surprising, hearing Oliver speak up suddenly, that Felicity couldn’t help but look at him-

He was staring at her.

She looked back down at her keyboard: her spine tight, feeling the ghost of his fingers on the centre of her back.

“Right.” And what was _that_? Mr Wayne sounded almost smug. Like, _sure you do_. “We agreed a 60/40 partnership in _your_ favour, a transfer of stock from you to me and a-”

“A cash cow from your company,” Felicity butt in, looking Mr Wayne square in the eye and that was intimidating enough because his eyes were quite black under the pale lighting of the conference room, “enabling us to get started in the next 6 months.” Fingers flying over her keyboard, the screen behind Mr Wayne’s head abruptly lit up and as a series of a graphs popped into existence, she enjoyed the glimmer of shock on the prestigious - not easily surprised - CEO’s face as he glanced to them. “The benefits on your side are actually greater: this isn’t a pure conglomerate. You’ll have a permanent foothold in Star City from here on out. All we’re asking is that you take a chance.”

“That’s not all you’re asking.” Bruce Wayne smoothly responded as spun back round.

Oliver’s voice was still so quiet. So… hammered down. Like a nail to wood. And that wasn’t something she wanted to understand just then. “Is it too much to allow us to expand our reach?”

As if he was holding back, by a lot.

“And gain market share for future opportunities.” Mr Wayne succinctly summarised.

“Like I said.” _Batman’s_ eyes travelled to her and she felt his stare like a physical presence. _Whoa_. “The benefits to you outweigh any concerns you may have.”

It was quiet for a moment.

“Convince me.”

He was looking at her. _You_ \- as in her personally - _convince me to say yes to this_.

She cleared her throat… and did exactly that.

 

* * *

 

 

_“If you so much as breathe in her direction, you don’t want to know how far and how fast I will bring this entire fight to your doorstep, Malcolm.”_

_The League, his team, the SCPD, himself: all of it._

_He couldn’t breathe. Something was compressing on his chest and he couldn’t breathe. He could only feel. And it was the kind of seething rage, fear, that made sense of the senseless. Steadied him. The kind of calm you didn’t want someone like Oliver Queen feeling._

_He had to take care of the threat to save the world._

_Malcolm Merlyn was the threat._

_The world was her._

_It was happening again. It shouldn’t be, but it was. No matter what he did..._

_“Oh, I think I do.” Thea’s father breathed the words, his eyes alight and completely missing the point. “I’ve wanted to see this in you since the beginning.”_

_“See what?” Oliver snarled, voice a mere rumble and dark. So dark- he just wanted to hurt him._

_Stop him._

_Kill him._

_And yet-_

Thea.

_Malcolm seemed to know that. “Your bloodlust. The will to do whatever it takes.”_

_“You’re right.” Nodding once; his voice nearly a whisper, eyes narrow. “You hurt her and there won’t be a conscience to worry about.” He stepped closer; glorying in the slight height advantage, the way his bulk blocked out the light, a symbol:_ I will plunge you into darkness. _“You fear Ra’s? You won’t have to if you’re a man of your word.” If he were to do as he’d threatened. And he would. He’d done so before. “I’ll kill you myself and you won’t see it coming. I don’t care if you’re known as the Magician.”_

_“I can see that.” Looking at him anew, Malcolm took a moment. For what, Oliver didn’t know but he seemed to be deliberating. “I won’t hurt her if you just do what I ask.”_

_“You mean, do what you can’t?”_

_Kill Ra’s al Ghul._

_The insult hit Malcolm where Oliver knew it would and it showed on his face. But Malcolm’s pride always took a backseat to his survival instinct. He always came first. His life meant so much more to him than anything else in the world. In that, he and Oliver were opposites._

_“Will you?” Malcolm asking, side-stepping the truth._

_Oliver turned away from him, walking out of the dark hallway they’d met in. “Call them off.” Malcolm’s assassins._

_“I’ll tell them to stand down,” Malcolm called out as Oliver reached the entryway, “but they’ll be ready in case you change your mind.”_

_A threat Oliver couldn’t do a thing about._

_Standing there, wanting to leave, Oliver stared at the man who’d once tickled him and Tommy after bringing them ice cream. Before Rebecca. Before… everything. “You’re despicable.”_

_There was a moment’s silence._

_“I know.”_

_It was happening again._

_And there was nothing he could do except play a part._

 

* * *

 

 

“Nicely done, Miss Smoak.”

The meeting adjourned, Felicity wanted to congratulate herself too, for surviving it. Never mind the success. _I’d pat myself on the back but-_

But she’d done that before and people thought she was weird enough. Normally, that wouldn’t bother her but, well, she’d had enough strained and awkward for the day to last a lifetime. 

The moment all was said and done, Oliver and Mr Wayne had stood to shake hands. They were going ahead with the plans.

But then both men had turned to her and her day grew ten times more skewed.

Oliver, he’d just… stared at her; unsure, unabashed, unsteady. Should he talk or stay silent? Would she want either?

His mouth opened, but nothing came out of it save an exhale and he blinked when Mr Wayne side-stepped him to thoroughly wring Felicity’s hand and ask the question, “are you sure you’re Oliver’s EA and not the Vice President?”

To which Oliver had the most unusual reaction.

His eyes closed.

He stood there, in a room filled with people, for over 20 seconds with his eyes closed.

When they opened, it was to look at her, then at Mr Wayne before landing on the floor.

And when he did finally surface, there was this weary acknowledgement about something she couldn’t understand in his face. Not that she allowed herself to look for long.

Then he’d been pulled away to the contract negotiations, which excused her to get the hell out of dodge while she still could.

“Thank you.” Sighing, she turned to Mr Wayne, closing her laptop and tilting her head. “I thought you’d be desperate to get out of here; from what I hear, the CEO of Wayne Incorporates the World,” a surprised chuckled huffed out of him, “likes these things almost as much as the CEO of Queen ‘We Try Really Fracking Hard To Win Hearts’,” this time, his smiled widened to reveal perfect teeth, _wow_ , and yep; humour coated her voice, “Incorporated.”

In an oddly childlike gesture, Mr Wayne shuffled on the spot. “In that, me and Oliver are Sympatico.”

“I’m sure he’s free for a nightcap.”

Bruce Wayne’s shoulders were definitely shaking. “I’m afraid my tastes run more towards…”

“Incredibly intimidating, modellesque, ‘eat men with spoons,’ type?”

Like, you know: the effortlessly sexy Selina Kyle who he’d been caught on camera with more than once. Talia al Ghul who Nyssa had told her all about. Vicky Vale who made being blonde, not stereotypically nerdy and representative of the good qualities of the female sex.

“Intelligent, honest women.” His quiet reply made her look up from gathering her equipment… and blink at the truth there. The real. “Brave women.” It was kind of intense actually, the way he was going about this. This was how Bruce Wayne made connections, however brief. He made them real, even if they only lasted a night. And he was reaching for one with her.

“Oh.” What else could she say, save ‘wow’ and ‘uhwaaa’.

But then she saw his eyes take her in - really take her in, from her shoes to her hair - and _nu uh_. “Are you ok, Miss Smoak?”

_Felicity, it’s ok. You’re ok._

She swallowed that down. Blinked it away. Forced _him_ back. “I’m fine!”

And maybe, being who he was made any shield one Mr Wayne could break through. “Do you want me to leave you alone?”

Discerning.

Mouth opening, she caught sight of Oliver at the far end of the room-

He was looking at her again.

“No.” _I really don’t_ , and her eyes moved back to Mr Wayne’s face. “I’m sorry, that was abrupt.”

“Don’t be.” Both hands in his pockets again - and somehow, a man as handsome and powerful as him still couldn’t make that look as good or effective as Oliver did, because it was so natural when Oliver did it as opposed to the way Mr Wayne used it as a tool - Bruce lowered his voice. “But something’s clearly hurting you.”

She frowned, looking up at the man more than a foot taller than her. “How could you tell?

“You're close to tears.” _Oh god, really?_ Why hadn’t she gone to look in a mirror?! Was that why Oliver looked like she’d punched him? If so, then he can keep it. Pity was the last thing she- “You aren't difficult to look at for any extended period of time, Miss Smoak.”

Golly.

That was… nice.

Really nice.

And a very welcome distraction. But not one she believed.

 _I’m diminutive, definitely not sexy, not a model and barely coping. There was just no way. Harmless flirting is the edge._ Still, her voice was quite soft: gratitude all on its own. “Thank you.” For making a near-unbearable day slightly less so.

His smile was gentle, voice an undertone. “I’m sure Oliver agrees.”

 _Oh hardy-har_. “I’m sure he doesn’t.”

For some strange reason, the smile on his face took a surreal swift turn into predatory.

 _Um_.

“I’m not available tonight.” _Er, kay?_ “But Thursday… would you like to go for a drink with me Miss Smoak?”

“It’s Felicity.” She stammered out in leu of a brain because, _huh_?

“Bruce.”

“Felicity.” She blurted out-

And for some reason - maybe it was the surprise of this, or maybe it was the sheer nerve of this guy, this Batman who she’d be effortless awed by if she hadn’t lived the life she’d lived or maybe it was the events of the day threatened to turn her about - she started laughing. It was slightly hysterical.

Extremely welcome.

“You just don’t give up.” She said, breathless and… yeah, she could admit it. She was flirting.

Looking at him with eyes that spoke all sorts of things, her body leaning towards his in a way she’d never let it before - like he was dinner and she was starving - and you know, what would be the harm? A night just for her. Didn’t have to include sex, though her body demanded that it did. She knew what this was.

Arousing.

Fun.

Wanted.

Bruce Wayne wanted to sleep with her.

 _She_ wanted to be wanted. Desired. _I’m human, so sue me_. To be with someone and know they’re only thinking about her. To forget all about Oliver Queen and everything he brought with him. To let go for a bit in a way she never could with Oliver.

To be alluring and everything she wasn’t to the man she loved, with another.

Hooded eyes, granite jaw, smooth as silk voice, “never,” and a body that was suddenly releasing all kinds of come hither chemicals and-

 _Yes, please_.

Deep down, she knew Oliver would hate this: Bruce Wayne was a new partner.

Oliver could take a hike. _It’s not like this would affect him in any way_. He’d had all the sex last night with the reporter from hell and if that wasn’t some sort of biased - and all kinds of ethically and morally wrong and icky - he’d clearly thought it didn’t matter. _He doesn’t deny himself, why should I?_

She didn’t consider his lack of self-worth. Didn’t take into account all the ways he screwed himself over.

This was for her.

It all ran through her head as she accepted Bruce’s invite to drinks on Thursday, all the while feeling a pair of eyes on her back as her new date escorted her out of the room.

And, well… if that feeling stayed with her for the rest of the day, it didn’t matter. If Oliver was looking at her more than he ever had, it didn’t matter. If he’d tried to speak to her about a hundred times before she left that day - little jerks forward that made her heart ricochet with each, only to be intercepted - it didn’t matter. He’d almost succeeded more than once but he’d chosen the wrong day. There was too much to do and he was never alone. It had been easy to walk away.

It made her feel sick.

That she was so relieved to leave the building and get into her car: to leave those eyes that had followed her unsettlingly for hours, like a literal presence on her skin. A heat at the back of her neck. Phantom fingers on the bottom of her spine - something that would stay with her afterwards - and it was lucky they were never given a moment alone, because who knew-

Who knew what she would have done. Or said. Or wouldn’t do.

Who knew what _Oliver_ would have done. Or would he have done nothing?

An image flashed over her once she hit the interstate - one that was tired, ruffled, restless, resigned yet anxious - an amalgamation of properties in his entire stature that would normally make her want to comfort him. But that _look_ as she was walked towards the lifts-

It left a lot of room for conjecture. What _was_ that? Did he even understand what he was feeling? Had he simply been wearisome? Was it just her presumption or-

She had no idea really. And thinking about would have driven her crazy.

She’d left early. She’d _left_ before Susan could _arrive_. 

Where she went - where she’d been going without realising - was the Bunker.

_“Why do you care? I’m just the woman who keeps you alive at night.” And it made her remember her deepest insecurities that first year after she’d joined the team, about the fragility of their alliance and the hope that it would keep going. “Nobody, really. I mean, anybody could do that right? Check your resumes, I’m sure my replacement’s in there somewhere.”_

Part of her was in awe. She’d said words she never thought she’d say, had never wanted to say. The rest? She was terrified.

She’d meant it.

But she also hadn’t.

The Bunker, like the Foundry had been, _is_ , her home. Her true home. Part of why that was, lay in Oliver Queen. The rest was embedded inside the mission they’d promised to carry on with. The only place where she could be herself in earnest, where she’d never had to hide or worry about her place in the world.

The mission was almost literally her life’s work, tied to keeping Oliver alive. _Sane_.

Whatever.

_He clearly doesn’t need me to._

Liar-

She didn’t know what to do.

When she made it down there, the first thing that caught her eyes was the punch bag in the corner next to the mats.

The same one she’d seen Diggle hammer at after a long day. The same bag Laurel used to step around. The bag Roy and Thea once worked on together. The one Oliver forsook for the harder, coarser touch of a training dummy.

But the only person who hadn’t shoved a fist at it, was her. Not that bag.

She wasn’t sure why she made a beeline towards it - _I am not Rocky_ \- or why she grabbed her overnight bag, pulling out her training gear. Why she strapped on protective wraps over her knuckles. Why she didn’t so much as take a moment before royally beating the hell out of a bag filled with sand because it hadn’t done a thing to her in the past.

She just knew that she needed to.

Standing still wasn’t an option; she’d unravel if she did and she didn’t even know what that meant. On any other day, at other time, she’d walk straight over to her computers and start whichever search for whatever group, order that new do-dad for Oliver’s freaky thingie m’ bob and process a data dump that would take a team of IT _nerds_ 24 hours to compile, in 3. That’s what she did. That’s how she contributed. She found the bad guy for Oliver to threaten or shoot. She led him through invisible mazes, cracked open locked doors, made entrances and exits where there weren’t any, dug out predators from their hidey-holes and offered them to Oliver...

Easy thing to do, right?

Her fingers dug so hard into her palms, she felt the skin tear. Did it all mean nothing? Years of work. Night after night.

_Nothing?_

She was shaking inside: _unsafe_. There was no solid ground here. No hand-hold. Lost at sea without an anchor. The irony of that was just too depressing to vocalise. Beating at a bag felt like the better alternative and, well… it was satisfying.

 _Is this why they do it?_ Because it drowned out sound, made everything simple for them in the same way computers do for her? She wasn’t normally the one they’d walk in on chasing her troubles away with sweat, split knuckles and the drum of each punch. _Right; I’m never the one_. _Dim sum over this any day of the week._

Still, John had taught her a lot. _No one else would_. The argument that she didn’t need it coupled with the fact that she barely showed an interest would be the reason why. She’d thought… she’d thought the idea of her being out in the field scared Oliver too much to consider. So, he’d refused. And of course, she’d contradicted her own theory with her smart mouth and her heart, the way she pushed words out into the open and demanded answers that hurt to bear. _Dig had thought otherwise_. It had taken her two full years to understand that sometimes, even locked doors and secret hideouts couldn’t keep you from harm. _Ergo, Miss Fitness and Slightly Lethal_.

Over the years she’d become proficient. Knew how to duck and weave in and out of the range of bigger, stronger, faster opponents. Knew how to land a punch followed by a jab and a right hook. _Take that!_ Knew that an elbow to the thigh - just above the knee - followed by a fist in the gut, a head-butt or a quick tap in the throat, could level many. Knew that if she pivoted on her right foot, bent a little at the waist, and lifted a leg up high to wrap around the arm - the hand - that had reached her shoulder, the tips of fingers grazing her, that she could destabilise her attacked and ultimately yank him forwards-

Unless he was a highly deadly, competent combatant… like the Arrow.

In which case-

He’d twist beneath her raised thigh - like so, _ooh_ \- and she automatically moved with him; hands tapping against the floor in a near-cartwheel - he might grunt or breathe in surprise because he’d never spared with her before or with anyone other than Diggle - _just like that!_ \- and this imaginary scene was good _, I’m working on all cylinders today_ , because she saw his step, that brief stumble of shock, as she surfaced round, lifting her arm to punch her fantasy enemy in the face-

**WHAM.**

She hit solid flesh. Hard.

“Oh!” _Who-_ Jarred, she sucked in a breath with a yelp; _that really hurts, ow_. Blinking several times, as if to make sense of the world in a way it hadn’t felt in so long, when her eyes saw-

Her hands lifted to her face, covering her horror.

_Oliver._

She’d punched Oliver in the _face_.

And he didn’t stagger or stumble, didn’t make a sound. Not like it hadn’t hurt him or he was too proud, more… as if he’d rolled with it. He wasn’t the opposite either - wasn’t still, a stone statue - wasn’t angry or annoyed.

Body straightening, his head turned her way before the rest of his body - a slight redness forming at his jaw, expression exposed - and he looked at her over his shoulder.

He _looked_ terrified.

Dumbfounded.

And so, _so_ sorry.

Her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

He hadn’t said a word earlier, in his office.

Just her name.

Just-

 _He flinched, looking like he couldn’t move for breath but otherwise, the starkness to his expression didn’t change._ _“Felicity-”_

Acid reflux shot up, burning her oesophagus, contaminating the taste at the back of her throat. She couldn’t do this. Here. Now. She didn’t have it in her, not if one look from him could make her want to run in a futile effort to shut out how his eyes pierced her. Not if the memory of earlier made her stomach turn over, and yet-

And.

Yet.

That look. She’d ached to see it for years. It was a trick. It had to be. But it was there, and she’d punched him and her beating heart, missed a step. Then it started to pound. To thud in her ears. Make her neck run red as her face paled. Made her eyes open.

He hadn’t move, except to fully face her; seeming small, though he beat her in size and strength. Looking devastated because she’d punched-

Her insides twisted. “I’m sorry.” She whispered from behind her hands, staring at him.

It didn’t feel good, hurting him. She’d never wanted to hurt Oliver. Never. Not even for-

_“I didn’t know that you aren’t my friend.”_

That. Not even then.

His head titled - not a carefree thing or in confusion - and it wasn’t to gage her. It looked more like… like he was being dragged to hell. Like something he could see in her suddenly made him feel every emotion he’d clearly repressed over the years. Repressed so damn well that she’d wondered at times, whether he really was a man who could be cold, unfeeling and self-sabotaging and choose that existence over happiness because he understood how to live it.

He looked like he had something to tell her, something to say. A lot of somethings. But a single word seemed like it could cost him the miserable existence that wasn’t so miserable because he had a vocation and a purpose - _no, he just denies himself happiness_ \- that he’d held onto so rigidly. Cost him everything he had.

 _I hate this_. The truth in the miserable. The fact that every extremely rare visit into the ether of Oliver’s - she supposed it was in effect - semi-functioning amygdala left him grasping for a life raft. How did it all get _worse_? Had she not seen it?

“It’s ok.” It didn’t help that his voice vanished after ‘it’s’ or the shaky breath he took. The softest blinks. And there were no words really, to describe just how wretched he clearly felt he was. “I’m ok.”

Fragile.

As if he thought that, maybe she’d meant to do it. Meant to hit him. In anger.

She felt her head move slowly side to side in answer and he watched her; naked hope making his eyes so intensely emotive and it had been so long - too long - that she was having trouble reading it. He was a fountain of things left unsaid, feelings repressed, memories buried, and dreams left forever unfulfilled. Whatever Oliver had wanted in life, he’d decided he’d never get it. “I deserved it.”

No… he didn’t.

Questioning everything she once thought meant made her wonder at the truth to her own responses to him. To the truth of how she saw him and what he was. But she trusted her instincts.

Hitting him had been an accident - _unconscious_ action - and it wasn’t what she’d wanted. Not a single part of her relished it. She was better than this.

Even with the day - with the upturned, vulnerable way he’d made her feel, with her insecurities exacerbated, with the one-sided betrayal - even with how she felt now, it all fell short to the ache that rested just under her chest.

It made her want to forget everything said and done, everything she’d learned. To pretend for a while, that he felt differently. The opposite. That she meant more instead of less. To erase the past few years and go back to a simpler time when possibilities were _possible_. Where the expression he wore now, fitted.

The look in his eyes that _begged_. That wanted. That were miserable. Hers to ruin. The one that told her the truth, the one that had started to make its way back before Roy died. The one that let her close.

 _I’m going to throw up._ This wasn’t what she wanted. It had _never_ been what she’d wanted.

To have that connection back… just because she’d stunned him. Just for words said that told him her heart and made him fear the loss of her.

He’d never been hers. That was the fantasy, the illusion she’d allowed herself to dwell on over the years. And she also didn’t want to ruin a man half-broken already. She wasn’t that kind of woman: Laurel who’d departed on cruel words, who hadn’t taken them back. Who’d chosen forsaking her mask to make a point, who’d belittled emotions she’d confessed to over the years for a shot at hurting him. She’d succeeded.

_Did it feel good Laurel?_

Hitting him had made her feel the reverse. All she’d ever wanted to do was help him. She’d tried so hard to help heal him-

Not lately.

No; she’d _left_ him to deal, alone, a while ago.

She blinked, hands still on her face.

The thought struck her dumb. _I left him?_

Didn’t he leave her first?

 _But_ , a quiet - almost insidious - voice muttered in her head, _did you push to find out more?_

Had she?

“Felicity-” Licking his lips, looking about ten different kinds of dreadful as he took step towards her, his eyes spoke the words his mouth failed once, twice to say. “I… I need to talk to you.” His mouth very literally quivered and that wasn’t diverting at all. “ _We_ need to talk… about… about what you said. What I said.” _What you didn’t say_. As if he’d held his breath, he took one that made his chest stutter as it lifted. “It’s not… it’s not what you _think_.” He breathed, his eyes beseeching…

A hand lifting.

But suddenly, she was back in his office. Back in reality.

When he said, _I deserved it_ , just now. As if what _she’d_ said had more than a lick of truth to it. Which felt so very _good_ sliding into her stomach, _oh yeah_ , slime-like.

Suddenly, it was supremely simple.

Her hands dropped from her face, clenching and unclenching at her sides, _ow_. She needed ice. “I need to change- to _shower_.” Her eyes shut because she sounded awful and for some reason, dismissing him like this caused genuine pain to ripple down his face. “…I need a shower.” She exhaled; brow creased-

Wanting to run.

So, she did.

“But your hand- Wait-”

She turned without opening her eyes. She walked towards the shower area without answering. “You need to suit up.” She voiced loud enough for him to hear.

“…You’re not leaving?”

 _Oh_ that hurt.

The hope in it.

The _fear_.

The many ways she could take it.

She left the area without saying a word.

And it felt like it took hours for her to clear away some of the _ugh_ ; rewashing her hair, conditioning, applying moisturiser, knowing she’d never look as pristine as Laurel, as confident as Susan or effortlessly beautiful as Sara.

And when she returned - hair damp, shorts and a long-sleeved shirt that fell off one shoulder - Curtis was there like a blessing.

Oliver watching from the sidelines where she couldn't see anything below his shoulders.

“Hey, Felicity.” He said with ease as she neared and here. _Here_ was a friendship where she knew where she stood. “I was just-”

“Do you want to take over?” It came out of nowhere but suddenly… yes. It _was_ simple. “Get some hands-on experience?” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder, to the computers behind her. “I’m sure Oliver won’t mind.”

Oliver _would_ mind. Oliver would mind a LOT.

But he’d get used to it. And maybe then, he’d let her go. Maybe she could let _him_ go. Maybe this could stop hurting so much. _Please, already_.

And yet, alarm bells were already ringing in her skull. _You’re going to regret this_. The voice told her.

She ignored it.

She ignored it _harder_ when Oliver popped into view, dressed in full Arrow regalia and _oh_ , that was a sight she’d miss. _I can live without it_. _I can._ She could. Really, she could.

“What’s going on?” Subdued, still fearful, Oliver stepped slowly up onto the dais. He looked from Curtis’s brilliant fish impersonation to her… and didn’t _stop_ looking.

 _Oh, it really has been a long time_. Her mouth went dry.

It wasn’t fair.

“Felicity just-” a puff of air made Curtis’s cheeks bloat. “She told me to take over the coms tonight.” And he laughed a little, like it was a dream come true and, in a way, it was. He’d been clamouring to do just that for a few months now and, well… since she was clearly only there to be a tool, surely Curtis could fill that same spot? “You don’t mind, do you?” And it was the most innocent Curtis had ever been. His unsaid law: don’t upset the Arrow.

The Arrow, who now looked _upset_.

The softest of soft blinks made way for the knife in his back, shown in his face. “Excuse me?”

It was throwing her for a loop.

He cared now?

“O-oh,” Curtis stuttered the way he always did when Oliver emotionally advanced on his person… which, as she’d said, was rare. He had no precedent. “Just, um-”

“You’re giving him the com?” Giving up on Curtis, Oliver spoke directly to her. “You’re…” as if the air had been sucked out of the room, Oliver literally had to take a breath. “What is this?”

He knew exactly what this was. And there was nothing remotely aggressive to his tone, to the _whisper_. He just, you know, looked like he’d had the earth pulled out from under his feet. _Be firm Felicity_. She was trembling.

But she just looked at him. Plainly. Pointedly. Not smugly or, _ah-hah_. More, _what difference does it make, Oliver?_

He just stared at her. And slowly the disbelief became something else; something like the same fear she’d seen flashes off since her return to the office, but more. Something she didn’t recognise because she’d _never_ seen it before. Not in any of her memories with him.

Curtis cleared his throat, the sound loud in the silence. “Felicity said-”

“I heard you.” He continued to stare at _her_.

This was already going south. But she needed time to think.

“Right!” It was overly peppy, light and so _fake_ that it made Curtis look at her like, _what are you doing; it’s freaky_ , and Oliver flinch. “Well… yeah, I mean; anyone can do this,” she gestured to her computers, the monitors, the ear wigs and various assortments of tech covering the entirety of her triple spread desk, “right? Doesn’t matter who.” Smile.

_Smile._

And it sounded like Oliver had forced himself to eat crushed glass. “Felicity,” leather fitted to perfect, dammit, Oliver stepped closer, leaning nearer; trespassing on her senses, “you are the _only_ one who can do this job.”

Voice quiet - ignoring Curtis who looked so unbelievably uncomfortable because this, this moment, meant everything - Felicity lifted her face up closer to his and murmured. “That’s the thing Oliver,” his eyes didn’t look dead anymore, but they were _so_ dark; his breaths _ragged_ , “you see it as a job.” Her head slowly, sadly, shifted side to side. “But it’s my _life_.”

And he’d made her feel like she’d wasted it.

He looked, genuinely, like he was about to throw up. “ _Please_ don’t do this.”

“Wait,” and yep; Curtis sounded about ten different kinds of awkward, “this _is_ just for tonight, right?” His weak chuckle screamed, _Felicity???_ “I mean, I can do it! But maybe it’s not the best idea to-”

She turned to him. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.” And that smile returned: she hated smiling when she was extremely unhappy. She hated that lie. She’d told it too often in the past. “It’s just,” she searched for the most understated way of saying it, “watching over him on the cameras and keeping on the coms.”

 _Oh God._ Was she really leaving Curtis alone to hack, play detective, do reconnaissance, open doors and seal them closed, navigate, pull out grids, filter through satellites, disrupt signals, transmit-

 _No_. If she thought about it, she’d never leave. And she had to.

Curtis nodded, gulping. “R-right.” He straightened, repeating in a mutter. “ _Right_. I’ll just, er,” he pointed to her desk, “get started.” And when he stepped closer to it, she found it briefly hilarious how he seemed to think it would come alive and eat him.

“Good luck.” She swiftly turned, tapping down the steps. “If you need anything, call me!”

“Will do!” And no, Curtis no longer sounded like that confident techno wiz she’d met over a year and a half ago.

But she couldn’t think about that.

“Felicity.” _Need to go, need to go._ As if coming out of a fog, it took Oliver a few seconds before he started to move. “Felicity, _wait_.”

He didn’t get to say her name like that; like it was the answer to every question he’d ever asked, on the heels of telling her that he hadn’t really been her friend in years. That he hadn’t considered her the way she did him for more than a few seconds at a time. That, whilst she’d been worrying about him and _his_ happiness, he’d taken enough steps back that he hadn’t even considered hers or whether she even was.

Happy.

She shook her head at herself. _Just leave_. She was moving quite quickly-

“Hey.” But he caught up to her as she neared the elevator and his voice raised. “ _Hey_ -”

Hey.

_Hey… it’s nothing._

_Hey, there you are._

_Hey, hey… it’s going to be fine._

She spun round so quickly she thought he’d stop but didn’t until they were toe to toe. “Why are you following me?”

“Why are you leaving?” And _yup_ ; voice still raised.

She squared him a look. “Are you kidding me right now?”

An inhale made him shudder, made his head did this little quirking thing that told her she was basically cutting him here. “I don’t want you to leave.” His answer was unfairly sweet and low now. “I don’t want you to go.”

“Well, you’ve been doing what you want for years now, so…”

_“But I don’t need it. Not anymore.” Something in his face just…died. She saw it happen, helpless to stop it. As always. And as always, he took her with him. “I don’t want it Felicity.”_

“ _So, I decided to not anymore. Not for more than the bare minimum.” His slight smile was this twisted thing, full of things she didn’t recognise. It said, you’re off the hook; see? “I had to let you go at some point. I didn’t always succeed. But I’d decided.”_

_“Just concentrate on your own life.”_

“I’m,” he took a moment, maybe remembering;  “I’m _so_ sorry. About your mother. I-”

“Didn’t know?” Brows raised, she waited. “I mean, why would you? You weren’t my friend.” _You didn’t care._

She could see the words physically touch him. “That’s not true.” Once, _just_ once, he shook his head hard; like he as rejecting everything she’d discovered. “It’s _not_.”

“You were _very_ clear.” She reminded him, hating that she had to and how the memory made her feel-

 _“Felicity, you know by now that in the field you’re my eyes but anything_ else _…” He trailed off like, again,_ you know this already _._

-but knowing that now meant that they couldn’t just step past this. “I’m _just_ here to be your eyes.”

His face _crumpled_. Brow-line harsh, eyes closing. “That isn’t what you are.”

“It’s what I am to you.” And he shook his head, _Felicity_ a whisper past lips that were trying to find the right words and… well, he wanted to talk. “I’m a tool.” And _wonderful_ , she could hear it now. Tears. Unshed tears in her voice. “You think I have no heart at all?” A tiny sound left him. “That this wouldn’t kill me?” Another sound broke free, louder and his eyes re-opened with it… but he couldn’t look at her. “Do you know what that’s like? Knowing that if I call you, _now_ ,” not that she would or had in a while, “that you wouldn’t have picked up?”

His eyes came back to her. Silently. But they felt like a punch. “I _would_ have picked up.” He mouthed the words, as if he knew the point she was making and deliberately trying to jump ahead of it.

“No,” if she hadn’t told him at lunch how he’d made her feel, he’d have never known, “you wouldn’t.”

He just looked at her. Face no longer empty of heart and soul, eyes no longer deflecting or dead but bare.

It caused the longing in her tone. “I could have helped you,” all this time, if he’d done the opposite, if he’d let her in. “If you let me. I mean,” it came out in bumpy stops and starts because she felt shaky now, and it wasn’t fair that he could see and hear her weakness, “was I that irritating? What’s so wrong with me, that you had to throw it away?” _Throw me away_.

That’s what it felt like. Her friendship, discarded. Unwanted. Unnecessary. It ripped open old wounds.

“God, _no_.” Immediately, he shook his head, inching closer to her. “There is _nothing_ wrong with you. Don’t- That isn’t-”

“You couldn’t even tell me that you weren’t my friend.” She whispered, and his mouth shut closed like a steel trap, his pupils dilating. “Was I not worth that much?”

“Please.” Like he couldn’t take it, his hands lifted to touch her, and she ached for that. “Please just let me-”

She stepped back before his hands could so much as graze her, so close to wanting the comfort of him. She didn’t want him to talk. She didn’t want to be more discombobulated than she was. “I thought you were just _scared_.” She whispered. “You’re _always_ scared-”

It tore through him, that truth. Lips pressing together; the muscles in his neck straining. His eyes started to _wet_.

But she only asked. “How could you?” It was _the_ question.

Roughly, his hands scrubbed up his face and shoved into his hair. He looked more tired than he had that morning. “I… I thought you were alright. That you didn’t need me.”

There was just- how could she respond to that?

“What?” It was barely there, coated with strained laughter because really, _what?!_

“I,” it sounded like he had wrench that single letter out, “I thought you’d be fine.” Desperately searching for a way to make this better or maybe just evaluating how he’d gotten it all so wrong, he tried to reach a light. His eyes lit up with the effort. “I thought you’d be better off, that it wouldn’t be so bad for you- and you seemed _fine_ -”

She made a sound because, _god_ , how skewed was his perspective? It was loud, disagreeing and demanding that he understand. “ _Fine_? You thought I was fine?”

Mouth closing over aggrieved breaths, a hand reached up to rub over brow.

“That…” _Oh my god_. “That’s such _bullshit!_ ” And he smiled but it wasn’t a happy thing: not even close. “You thought I’d be _ok_ with it? And how would you know if I wasn’t?” She spoke over him. “You stopped talking to me, stopped caring-”

“I never stopped caring.” Looking at him now, she could tell he believed that. “I never stopped.”

But there was no proof. “What does that matter if I’m not worth showing care to-”

“Please stop.” He croaked, eyes were raw, red, around the edges. “Please just- just let me tell you. Let me explain this to you.” He licked his lips. “It was never my intention to hurt you like this.”

“But you knew you would.” She quietly said, watching his expression take a dive to haggard. “You knew you’d hurt me.”

And he did it anyway.

For a long, long moment, he just looked at her. And she shifted, unable to look away, wanting him to hold her and he saw it in her. Saw that she’d push him away if he tried. His mouth opened, his eyes searching hers. “It’s been… years. I was sure you knew.” He pled; his head moving with it. “And that you were _fine_. That-”

“That I got the message and was hunky dory with it?” Because she knew him, because he _knew_ she watched him, it also meant- “Then you never really knew me at all.”

If he couldn’t see that she wasn’t fine, if he didn’t understand that he’d made her life better and then took what made it better away, if he didn’t know every time he’d looked in her eyes - times that had felt more dream than reality - like he was doing now, that she was hopelessly in love with him… then what had she been doing all this time?

_Wasted._

She let that hit him. Let him see. Until the silence became unbearable.

She’d never made a secret of her feelings for him. “I’ve missed you so much.” Lovers words.

Gravelly in it’s timbre, “ _Felicity_ ,” he made her name sound like a prayer and maybe it was to him. Maybe there _was_ something she didn’t know. “Come with me. Let me-”

“You’re not my friend.” She whispered into the ether, not really looking at Oliver anymore. None of it mattered just then. “You’re not my guy.”

“I-” he pushed past the wad in his throat and it sounded sharp, like his gaze. “I’ll always be you’re-”

“But you’re not. They’re just words now.” And she lived by words. By her own rambles, by the beautiful way he used to say her name... and sometimes still did. “I can’t believe you’d do this.”

_I can’t believe you’d do this to us._

She refocused on him, allowing her face to display every second of what she thought of the betrayal he’d decided to embark on a few years ago. “I actually thought you were just _sad_.” She lifted her hands that no longer held a prayer of being the one to make him see the light. “That you’d been hurt too much, that you’d _lost_ too much.”

Madness tracing letters on his skin, he’d stopped fighting. Just gazed at her face, feeling her words in the dark of eyes; his open mouth a silent scream.

“You’ve been killing yourself.” It was despair that had etched itself in the plains of his skin, down the slopes she’d thought she’d known so well. “And you’ve been letting me watch,” something hit her then, “because you thought I’d be _fine_ with it.”

If he thought she’d be fine with his space, if he’d considered her care for him, her feelings, to be less than they were then of _course_ he’d think she wouldn’t. Of _course_ , he’d think she’d be fine without him.

If he didn’t know she loved him.

In _any_ capacity.

 _Oh._ For a moment, the world tilted-

Her hand smacked the wall for stability and she just breathed. In. Out. In…

It had all been a waste of time. On her part _and_ his.

She might have said something, might have whimpered as she closed her eyes, concentrating on keeping her feet, she wasn’t sure. The world was an indistinct mess and he could have it. But it took her precious seconds to recognise the hand encircling her bicep, gripping. The one gracing over her back and holding on. Open palmed. Pressing.

They were cold.

“Felicity.”

_Felicity._

“Let go.” She mumbled through numb lips, her gaze on the wall. His hands her, the intent behind them: they weren’t real. He’d taken the goodness from the reality and had shown her the truth.

He’d never known. He’d never seen her.

But he didn’t let her go. “Don’t go.” He was so much closer; his voice something that shot down her spine and wasn’t that unfair at this point? That he still could do that to her? “I need you… here.”

Here.

In the basement.

 _Deep breaths_ , her chest gave a horrible jerk when she slowly looked at him once more. He was inches away and something in him pulled too; she saw it when he sucked in a breath. In the ashen-white of his fear, his _mistake_. The way his lips trembled.

Eyes flitching here, there, everywhere on her and yes; she remembered now.

When Sara had left for good, he’d looked at her like this.

She understood it now; he hadn’t been considering the unthinkable, he’d been _preparing…_ because then Helena returned. So easily fitting in with his new aura of restless depression, which she now knew to be him going through a form of withdrawal.

From his friendship with her.

She felt his warmth - his chest - against her turned shoulder, stricken-

 _Whatever_ , she thought tiredly.

She was going to faint if he didn’t-

“Let me go.” She repeated, feeling fragile, unable to expend more energy. “ _Please_.”

Voice low, “I hurt you,” it was as if he was _just_ beginning to fathom the damage.

She kept her silence, _what can I say at this point?_ To a man who’d decided to no longer listen, to no longer take her word or accept her help and love, to keep her close as a partner, comrade and friend… all without telling her.

“There’s more Felicity.” His voice was a rumble and just ten minutes ago, she’d craved to hear it.

“Oliver-” She bit down on her lip. _Oliver_. She loved his name too. She loved it the same way she thought he’d loved hers. “I’m so stupid.”

He pressed in-

Her head lifted. “You need to understand.” One of them was trembling and it was probably her. “You wanted something, and you didn’t respect me enough, _trust_ me enough to talk to me about it.”

“I thought of nothing else.” His breath skittered across her cheek and she almost hated him for that, for the sweetness of it. The experience of it. First and last. “All I _wanted_ was talk to you.”

“But you knew I might change your mind.” He stilled. “So, you didn’t. I respected that- that something in you was different and that,” she swallowed, “and that you had less room for me inside you.” Every muscle in his body seemed taut enough to shatter with an ounce of pressure. “But did you care at _all,_ ” she had to push down the wail threatening exposure, “for how much _I_ might care about _you_?” It was a fair question.

He didn’t answer it.

He just stared at her, all broken edges. She felt an absence in her already; what was she doing, trying to break through to a man who’d spent the past 2 to 3 years, refusing her existence?

Except, he called it ‘distancing’. For her own good.

 _She_ called it fear.

And never - not ever - had she thought so little of the man she loved and, _pity_. It didn’t make her love him _less_. Horrifyingly, it made her want to stay with him, coax him out into the open. Hear what he clearly wanted to say. But if she did that, he’d never understand, and she was so sick of being left behind.

“Stop looking at me like it means something to you now.” So, she shook him off and he let her: not an ounce of resistance inside him to be had.

Looking like his world had come to an end.

Hand holding open the lift doors, it made her pause. Made her look back at him.

‘I fucked up’, was written on his face. A dash of ‘please god, help me’, made her remember all the times before Sara and even after her, when he’d talked to Felicity about his day. When he’d looked to her to make it better. When he’d called her his partner.

Before taking it all away.

His eyes flickered to hers-

-and away... and back and away like he was barely holding it together.

She looked down. _I need to go_.

And she did. She left the Basement.

It wasn’t till later, after the shock wore off and the pizza settled in, that she noticed the tiny flashing light on her ever powered up laptop that sat on her bed. And it wasn’t until 5 minutes after that, that she found herself smiling.

The smile became full on laughter seconds later, because it was just so ridiculous.

Susan had compiled a new file, labelled:

_Felicity Smoak, Associate of Arrow? Criminal liaison? Intelligence analyst?_

Criminal liaison.

It was so bad, it was _good_.

Here, right here, was a focus that would take her mind of the hopelessness she felt. “Keeping an eye on you.” She muttered at the screen, ensnaring Susan’s database with trojans in case the woman should try something sneaky. Or discover something she really shouldn’t.

 

* * *

 

 

_“As if I’d let you touch my daughter.” The tail end of a threat that meant next to nothing to Oliver._

_Except the-_

_“You’d do that to her?” He breathed the question, stunned that a man would go so far, he’d irreparably hurt his own flesh and blood._

_“I would do far more, for less.” Mr Kuttler said. “Let me make myself clear: I’m a criminal hacker, Mr Queen. And you are the Arrow. Felicity works for you-”_

_“_ With _me-”_

_“Helps you.” The man corrected. “Either you keep her association with you to a minimum, or I ruin her career.”_

_He couldn’t believe he was hearing this._

_“You don’t believe.” Felicity’s father smiled. “You realise that the less ties she has with Star city, the easier it would be to turn her towards me. We’d do so well together.”_

_“That’s not happening.”_

_“I can tell you care about her. But I don’t want to see her hurt or worse because of you.”_

_“She won’t be.”_

_“And you can be sure of that can you?”_

He’d made sense. But Oliver had ignored it… until Roy.

And yet-

_“But did you care at all, for how much I might care about you?”_

And yet.

He’d destroyed it all on his own. He hadn’t needed Kuttler. Or Malcolm. Or Slade. _He’d_ done it.

 _I didn’t know._ He hadn’t thought. 

She'd left.

“Ah, Oliver?” _Curtis_. Oliver’s eyes closed.

He couldn’t do this.

He didn’t know what it meant anymore.


End file.
